


A Collection of Firsts.

by ProudToBe



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings, but also danger, etc lots of first things, fluff probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9441107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProudToBe/pseuds/ProudToBe
Summary: When a mischievous Efreeti starts making enemies in Tal'Dorei there are more than a few people putting a price on his head. Kima and Allura meet fighting for the same goal, but with different means - to bring justice to the Scourged Rider.Kima and Allura's first mission together and the firsts they had along the way.





	1. The Job

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a story about how Kima and Allura met, but what was meant to be a one shot turned into a longer story of sorts, but seen in “firsts”, so time jumps probably. It was a loong time since I wrote something so this is a sort of small comeback, at least for myself.  
> As for how they met, their wikias said that it was to battle/while battling “the Scourged Rider”. Who and what it was seemed pretty unclear? Someone said that it was their name of Thordak, but I’d like to imagine that they at least knew each other a little before that. So I decided to just make an enemy up. I took a lot of liberties with their companions as well since very little is known about them. Beware that I'm not a smut writer.

The note looked small and insignificant next to all the wanted-posters and colourful ads for “Emon’s newest, and most spectacular theatre! Opening on Wednesday at 8.” But it somehow managed to catch Kima’s attention and she ripped it off looking closer.

_Strong people, up for a fight, talk to Günter Boneback at the Wyvernhound for a job. You’ll get 10 000 gold._

It was hastily written down and Kima almost had a hard time figuring out what the note said. This Günter seemed pretty desperate, but also didn’t want to catch too much attention to whatever he needed help with. It sounded like the perfect mission, she thought with a smile, and it was actually the first one she had found since she started looking two days ago. Two entire days with only walking around searching for people with a job, while also trying not to get lost. She was fairly new to Emon and she was already starting to miss her much smaller home-city.

Kima had spent the majority of the past months devoting her time to her faith. A necessary task for a paladin, but not always the most fun thing to do in her own opinion. She was devoted to her platinum dragon though, so despite how demanding it sometimes was she went through it without complaining. She had finally decided to take some time off studying and daily prayer in the temple to have some time for second biggest interest in life. Beating things up.

She put the note in her pocket and turned towards the closest creature in her vicinity. It happened to be a dragonborn. She tapped her on the shoulder (or as close to the shoulder she could reach).  
“Yeah?” the dragonborn said as she turned her blue-scaled head around to look at Kima. She looked friendly, but sort of intense, with a pair of eyes that could read your most inner intents.  
“Do you happen to know the way to the Wywernhound?” Kima asked.  
“The Wywernhound… Hm.” She sank down in thoughts for a second before lighting up. “In fact I do! It’s not too far. Just go out to the right and then turn left at the third exit, then left again when you see a statue in the shape of a wolf…” Her instructions went on for a while and Kima had to try her hardest to remember everything. When the dragonborn was done Kima quickly thanked her and made her way outside. She was eager to take on the mission.  
After walking around for a while she realised that she had forgotten almost half the directions and turns, but she pushed on trying to find the way. She’d be damned if she couldn’t even remember simple directions.  
“Bloody far away. I’m getting old.” She muttered, and laughed to herself as she kicked a small stone on the walkway. It bounced away a couple of feet and then stopped making clinking noises on the ground. Much like that gold would if she could just get to that tavern, Kima though as she watched it’s journey.  
“Bahamut show me the way.” She sighed and continued walking. Unfortunately her dragon didn’t seem to be of any help today and it took her several hours before she finally saw an old sign sticking out from a building reading “The Wyvernhound”. It was getting dark and she realised that she needed to be in and out quickly if she wanted to find her way back to the temple before dark. Her stubbornness had gotten her this far and she was not about to give up.

Inside there were quite a few people, but it wasn’t stacked. She looked around the room to see if anyone looked like a Günter Boneback, but with only a name it wasn’t the easiest. Instead she went up to the bar and took a seat, maul on her shoulder, grabbing a few coins from one of her inner pockets in case she would have to bribe him.

“’Scuse me, is Günter here?” she asked the person standing in the bar. A half-orc with grey skin and a mighty, beard adorning his face, who was cleaning a glass as big as hear head with a surprisingly clean rag. “Günter Boneback?”  
He put down the glass and looked up at her with a wide smile on his face.  
“Well yer lookin’ right at him!” he said and walked up to her. “What can I do ye for?”  
“I’m interested in the job.” She held out the small note to him and he nodded.  
His face immediately turned more stern and secretive, but his smile didn’t fade as he took the piece of paper. He took a quick glance around the room and then leaned closer to Kima.  
“They call him the Scourged Rider.” He said in a low voice. “He’s an Efreeti from the Fire Plane and he owes me ye see. I won against him in a game of cards an’ ‘e gave me this beautiful ring.” He raises his hand to show Kima a golden ring with ornate carvings on the side in a language she did not understand on his right, middle finger. On top there were three jewels. One red, one blue, and one green, sparkling even in the dim tavern light. “Ye see ‘e told me it could do all sorts of magic things and foolish as I was I believed him. But when I put it on, there was a spark of some type-a light and I almost died. If it wasn’t for my lovely wife – may Pelor bless her soul - I wouldn’t be standin’ here talkin’ to ye. We still haven’t found a way to get the bloody thing off though an’ I quite like me fingers so I don’t wanna cut any off. It attracts unwanted attention, but to be honest I’m starting to grow quite fond of it…” He trailed of inspecting the shimmers the stones gave off as he slowly turned his hand in different angles. Kima cleared her throat and gestured for him to continue with an inpatient look.

“Oh, yeah, anyways, I want this bloke dead of course. I don’t care how ye do it, just bring me his head so I can see it with me own two eyes. And also to know ye ain’t extorting me or something. Not that you seem like the typ-a gal that would, but I’ve learned my lesson in trusting people if ye know what I mean.” He chuckled and looked at Kima, but she just gave him a cold stare. It was getting late and listening to this man’s life story was not how she wanted to spend the rest of her evening. She needed to get back to the temple.

“Oh, not a jokester.” He mumbled to himself. “Well… heh. I’d do it meself but me legs ain’t what they used to. An’ I never really liked travelin’ either. I got a lot of information about him and his whereabouts though, so all ye have to do is find him and take him out. I don’t really have a strict time limit. But it’d be great if ye could be back before Winters Crest. I’d love to burn ‘is head in one of the fires ye see. So that would be in uh…” He counted quickly on his fingers. ”… about a month. That sound like an okay deal?”

Kima thought for a while. He seemed like the type of barkeep who loved to tell a good story to whoever was in earshot. If it hadn’t been for his apparent dislike for traveling he might have become a bard, she thought. But she had the sense that he was someone she could trust. He wouldn’t just send you into certain death, and besides, it was a very lucrative job.  
“Depends on where he is. I’m not the fastest.” She answered and gestured towards her Halfling form. It wasn’t intended as a joke, but Günter chuckled.  
“Well, from what I’ve heard he seems to mainly roam about Markett. He’s from the fire plane, but I doubt he’d go back there anytime soon. ‘E seems to have been banished. From his own home. Must be tough, but it serves him right. I’d advise ye not to go alone though. Nothin’ against ya, I couldn’t even take him out on my own.”  
She nodded. One month to get to Marquet and back was quite far, she definitely couldn’t get there on foot in time and maybe not even by horse. There were some airships in Emon and a few teleportation circels, but she didn’t have the money nor the rank to use any of them.

She was just about to decline the offer with a heavy heart when a human sitting a few chairs away looked up at them.  
“I might be able to help.” She said with a smile and moved closer. Kima felt a sting of hope, but then she realised that the woman had been eavesdropping their conversation in a shady bar and the feeling turned into suspicion. She narrowed her eyes. The woman was clad in blue, surprisingly clean robes and she had a brown leather bag at her side. She looked friendly and at the moment and Kima saw no weapons on her. Considering how stupid it would be to walk into, well, anywhere defenceless, the woman had to be some sort of magic wielder, or just very good at hiding her knives.  
“And why do you think that.” Kima asked leaning back, while tightening her grip around her maul.  
“Well, you see. I can fight… a-and I have a few friends that could help too. We’re actually… Well it would probably be better if we discussed it in private.” She gave Kima an admonishing look and indicated the people around the bar. “We have a room upstairs.”  
Not realising until now that this was an inn and not a bar Kima felt even less trusting towards the entire circumstance, but nothing about the woman seemed threatening. It was either following her - maybe get ambushed, but hopefully getting a lot of money - or just head home without anything until she could find some new mission.  
“Fine. I accept the deal.” She said and nodded to Günter as she hopped off the chair. Günter only smiled back and went back to drying glasses.  
“Great! Good luck, you two!”  
If Kima had wondered how he could be fooled by that so-called “Scouraged Rider” before she knew now. Despite trying, Günter was way too trusting with people. She sighed, shook her head, and looked up at the human, now walking beside her towards a flight of stairs she hadn’t noticed before.  
“If try anything funny I swear to Bahamut that it’ll be the last thing you do.” Kima said with a stern voice.  
“Oh I don’t doubt it.” The woman answered with an understanding smile. “I’m Allura by the way.”  
“Kima.” Kima grunted back. She didn’t hold out her hand and walked in stubborn silence until Allura stopped in front of one of the doors. She knocked in what seemed like a specific pattern and then opened it revealing a small room with two bunk beds. Inside were three more people and Kima quickly grabbed one of her daggers. But none of them made a move towards her. They only looked at her curiously. Two of them, a gnome and a human, were sitting on either bed playing cards and the third, a dwarf with a beard and long brown hair, was leaning against one of the walls reading a small book.  
“Hey guys, this is Kima.” Allura started, not sounding quite as confident anymore. ”She’s going to join us, hopefully. Kima, these are my… friends. Dohla:” She gestured to the gnome who gave Kima a small wave and a smile.  
“Welcome to the party.”  
“Ghenn.” Allura continued and the human nodded towards her. Kima said hello to both of them and loosened the grip on her dagger. If they wanted to attack her they would have done so already.  
“And Drake.”  
The dwarf only looked back at her with mild suspicion.  
“Can we trust her?” He asked, not putting down his book.  
“Well hello to you too.” Kima muttered and leaned toward the opposite wall, not sure where she fit in among all the new people. Allura closed the door behind her and, as she did, said a word in a language she didn’t understand. The door glowed with a white light for a short second and then went back to being the same old wooden door. Kima had no idea what kind of spell Allura had cast but she knew she had been right; Allura was an arcanist.  
“I overheard her talking with one of the bartenders and she’s taking on the same mission as us. Different boss though. Uriel wasn’t wrong when he said that the Efreet had made quite a few people upset.” Allura explained as she sat down beside Dohla. “He’ll give ten thousand gold if she brings him his head, so I think she wants to catch him just as much as we do.”  
“That’s my money though!” Kima burst out when sudden interest showed in the gnome’s eyes. She had worked hard to find this job and she’d be damned if she split the price with four other people.  
“We’re not gonna take your money.” Drake said with a flat voice going back to his book. “We have a deal with the sovereign so we’re gonna get our moneys’ worth anyway.”  
“Uriel?” Kima was impressed, Drake seemed honest, which should mean that she was sitting among pretty important people. It wasn’t just anyone who got an audience with the head of Emon.  
“Yeah, word got out that he was looking for people to aid him, and we all showed up. Not at the same time, of course, but he put us together as some sort of task force. He didn’t want to send his own guards. Not sure if he needed them to stay here or if he was just embarrassed.” Dohla laughed. “But here we are.”  
“Embarrassed?”  
“Apparently the Efreeti pulled some sort of trick on him. He didn’t want to say what it was, so probably nothing good. He wants to bring him to justice after what happened and seemed really upset.”  
“Justice as in a trial or as in death?” Kima hoped the latter but Dohla only shrugged.  
Allura looked troubled for a moment.  
“I’d like to put him to trial… But they don’t agree with me,” she gestured toward the rest of her party, “and Uriel said that we should do what we could. I don’t know what’s easiest. Capturing an Efreeti or killing one.”  
“Well I’m here to kill it.” Kima said with a stern look towards Allura, who nodded.  
“That you are.”  
They sat in silence for a moment before Drake spoke up.  
“Well on to more practical things. We’re planning to go to one of the bigger libraries tomorrow to see if we can find some information about Efreet. Their potential strengths and weaknesses, et cetera. We’ve been to a few already but not found more than that they seem to be resistant to fire. As for today, it’s evening and we have a room here with five people and only four beds.”  
Kima was getting the impression that he didn’t trust her yet and would rather have her sleeping somewhere else. She felt the same about him.  
“Well, I was planning to go back to my temple…” Kima said as her voice trailed off looking out the window. It was already pitch-black outside and considering how long she had wandered around trying to find the inn the chance of her finding her way back before dawn was very low. Staying didn’t seem like the best option either; sleeping in a room with four strangers. She highly doubted that they would attack her, she just preferred to have her own room when sleeping. All the snoring and the overall presence of other people in her vicinity had always made her made feel uneasy.  
“You can sleep with me!” Dohla said jokingly with a wink.  
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just rent my own room.” Kima answered, giving Dohla her first smile of the evening. She pulled out her pouch with money, which she luckily hadn’t had to use yet. She did have enough for a few nights and it was probably best to stay at the inn with her newfound party. But the longer they stayed, the less she could spend on what she would need for the mission. Potions.  
“Allow me.” Allura stood up and pulled out a pouch of her own from her bag, much larger that Kima’s. ”It’s the least I can do for the inconvenience.”  
Kima didn’t complain and let Allura follow her down to the bar, where Günter was still cleaning cutlery.  
“Have you done many missions like these before or are you just rich?” Kima asked her, gesturing at the pouch, as they were walking down the stairs. She hadn’t meant for it to sound so harsh. “I mean um… You seem to have a lot of money…”  
Allura only smiled at her.  
“I’ve made magical items since I was a child. They weren’t that good at first, I tried to make bags of holding, but some of them ended up destroying things you put into them, or took away the magic on items instead. I got a lot better with time and one day I realised that I could probably sell them to other people. One doesn’t really need more than one bag of holding after all.”  
“Cool.” Kima answered. It was the only response she could give. If Allura was telling the truth she was truly a powerful archanist. To make bags of holding when only a child…  
“Is that one of them?” She asked and pointed to the bag Allura had been carrying with her.  
“It is, actually! One of the earliest designs. I wanted to keep it as a memory. I’ve gotten a lot better since then.”  
“’Ey there again ladies.” Günter interrupted their conversation with a wide smile. “Everythin’ going okay with the mission?”  
“Splendid.” Kima answered. “We’d like- I’d like a room. Only a few nights. If we stay longer I’ll pay for more.”  
“Of course! Here ya go. Room 25, is luckily available. Just beside yer friends. That’ll be 30 gold for 3 nights.” He handed Kima a brass key with the number 25 engraved in it and a candle for light, as Allura handed him the gold. They made their way back upstairs.  
“What about you?” Allura asked.  
“Me?”  
“Yeah, I learned magic by making items, how did you learn to fight?” She nodded at the maul, still resting on Kima’s shoulder.  
“Well, you kinda have to, living in a world like this one. Lot of people out there who don’t want you any good.” Kima answered, Allura didn’t say anything and waited patiently for Kima to continue.  
“It’s a long story.” Kima sighed as she slid the key into the lock and opened the door to her room. Allura didn’t push her on it and knocked her secret pattern on her room door, but she looked interested.  
“Perhaps a story for another time.” She said.  
“Another time.” Kima nodded. “Good night.”  
“Good night!” Allura smiled once more at her before she went into her room, braids and robes flowing behind her as she closed the door. Kima shook her head and laughed a bit as she got ready for bed.  
“Bahamut what is this plan you have for me?” She asked as she laid down on her bed, blowing out the candle that Günter had given her. An unexpected day, but not in a bad way. Maybe she could actually make some friends in this city.


	2. The Library

If Kima had known before how long it would take for her newfound group to actually get anywhere she would probably have left them and gone to Marquet alone, but Allura frequently tried to convince her that this was a smarter and safer way to go about their mission.

“You can’t just run after someone without a plan, Kima!”

“Well, what if he gets away? Travels somewhere else? He might even go to another plane!”

“We’ll find him, and when we do we can get there almost instantly, we do have access to Uriel’s teleportation circuits.” She promised and she sounded confident enough for Kima to believe her. If she was as great of a wizard as she had been in her childhood maybe she could do something to find people.

They spent about a week in total in different libraries looking for valuable information (that including the three group had had before Kima’s arrival. Drake and Allura took it very seriously and spend hours looking through books, scribbling down notes on various papers scattered around the table. Dohla and Ghenn were with them at first, but soon went out looking for weapons and other necessities instead. Kima would have joined, but more people were needed for searching, and she had rolled very poorly in the dice game Ghenn had convinced them would decide who would go. She was still convinced that they had cheated, but she didn’t have any actual evidence of it, so she decided to just leave it be.

Kima had quickly become friends with Ghenn and Dohla. They played cards together in the evenings (which she rarely won) and exchanged stories they’d heard about people like them slaying dragons and finding treasure. Allura joined sometimes, although she seemed to enjoy the stories more than the games, especially Kima’s. They hadn’t had time to talk since the first evening and her promise of a childhood story to Allura had yet to be told. 

Drake was always sitting by himself. In a corner of the bar or in his room. What he was doing Kima had no idea of, but probably practising spells, like Allura often did, or trying to find more information on his own. He had confirmed Günter’s tip about the Rider being in Marquet, but the specific city was unclear, he seemed to pop up here and there every few weeks. Drake had also given them a description of the Efreeti which he had put together after talking to various people.

“He’s a tall fellow by our standards, but aparently not for an Efreet. eleven feet. Is sometimes seen bald and other times with long, fire-like hair flowing threateningly behind him. He has velvet skin and small, yellow eyes, which people say seem friendly at first but as they look closer see mischief and evil in. He has burn marks on the left side of his body – how a creature made of fire can have that is beyond me, must be some sort of a curse or something – and he’s is said to carry around a striking silver sword and jewellery to fool his victims into trusting his riches. With him he has no one except, it is rumoured, a giant, flaming hound. Burning white with blue eyes, striking fear in those who sees it. It keeps away from cities and lurks around in the forests, but always comes when he whistles.” He had told them in a low voice during dinner the evening before. The darkness of the room and seriousness of Drake’s voice had made it seem more a ghost story. Kima shivered at the description. A scourged rider he was indeed.

  


* * *

 

As the days last rays of sun shone through the window Kima absentmindedly sketched a small picture on one of her papers. An idea of what she imagined the Scourged Rider looked like, while failing to keep her focus on the books she had tried to search through today. They were all very dry and boring and she often found herself looking away to the other side of the table, where Allura and Drake were sitting, reading and occasionally mumbling things to one another. Drake was a still reader. He sat in his chair and scanned the pages up and down only moving to take notes. Allura on the other hand, had her hands in her hair quickly tying and un-tying the braids she always wore her hair in, while quietly humming. Some songs were familiar to Kima and others completely new. She found herself amazed by the dexterity with which Allura’s hands moved. She must have done it since she was a child and had a learned precision Kima had never seen anyone with.

Braid.

Un-braid.

Braid.

Un-braid.

Braid.

Un-braid.

Allura suddenly looked up from her book and Kima was to slow to look away.

“Finding anything?” she asked with a low voice and a smile.

“Not really.” Kima sighed, “How many days are we gonna do this? It’s soo boring!” 

“We’ll probably head out soon. Most of these books seem like a dead end anyway.” Drake answered, not looking up, but sounding as tired as Kima felt. “Apparently Efreet anatomy aren’t really that popular to write books about. Or, they don’t want it to be.”

“Great!” Kima felt her mood raise a bit now that she knew that she wouldn’t be trapped in libraries forever. She tiredly closed the book in front of her and rubbed her eyes. _An overview of the Fire plane_ had sounded like a helpful title at first but it was only pages and pages describing the different climates and nature of the plane. Something Kima personally would have summed up with: “It’s warm, but some places are a little less warm and oh, look, most things are also on fire.”

She picked up the titles closest to her and started heading to their shelves to put them back. Someone else could probably have done it quicker, but it gave her an excuse to stretch her legs for a bit. She walked to the shelves marked “Nature and habitats of the different planes” and put a few of the books back and then headed to the “Fire plane creatures” section to put back the last one. It was a small book about Efreet that mainly talked about their culture, where they lived, who their allies and enemies were and what kind of social structure the lived by. Just like every other book they had found about them.

She was just about to head back when she saw a book that aroused her attention. It was relatively small, green leather with golden letters, sitting on one of the lower shelves.

 

_Creatures of the fire plane_

_Volume VIII_

_Genies_

_By Javal El Karim_

 

She picked up the book and hurried back to the table where Drake and Allura were starting to clean up, gathering their notes and putting the remaining books in a neat stack.

“Guys I think I found something!”

She put down the book in front of them with a hopeful smile. Allura immediately opened it and skimmed through the index in the back.

“E… Ef… Efreet! I found it!” She looked up at Kima excitedly and turned to the right page. Started to read while quickly jotting down notes.

“Let’s see here… They mainly live in the Fire Plane and are of course resistant to fire – well we already know that – they seem to not like other genie races and hm… can live and travel both in groups and alone… We already know that the Rider is alone… And oh finally something useful! They can use magic and often make magical weaponry. They can also shape-shift and are week to water! Makes sense since they are basically made of fire.”

Allura put down the pen and rushed to Kima’s side. She put her arms around her and gave her a big hug, picking her up from the ground and spinning her around.

“Good job Kima!”

Kima, who was taken by surprise by the hug took a moment to answer.

“Um… Yeah. Thanks, heh.” She said while absentmindedly scratching the back of her head. She would have attacked anyone who picked her up from the ground, but she somehow couldn’t be mad at Allura. She shone like a sun while going back to the table and quickly reading through the chapter and writing down some more notes. Drake went to put back the rest of the books with a content expression. He would have smiled if he was a person who smiled.

“If Efreet can shape-shift, then why do we know what he looks like? I mean shouldn’t he just have taken on different disguises to avoid that?” She asked after a moment of silence. Allura sunk down in thoughts for a while.

“Maybe it’s the same reason he has those scars? It might be a curse blocking some, or all, of his magic. Or he wants to make a name for himself.”

“A curse would certainly be great.”

“Well if not that, at least now we know some of his weaknesses.” Drake said as he returned to the table. He sounded hopeful and less tired than before. The discovery had lightened up all their spirits and they went back to The Wywernhound excited to tell the rest of the party.

 

* * *

 

“I guess we’ll have to pack a lot of water then.” Ghenn shrugged as they eagerly put another piece of chicken on their plate. They were pretty small for a human, but they ate like a goliath. Probably to maintain their massive strength, which Kima had doubted at first. This had led to an embarrassing defeat when she challenged them to arm-wrestle. She was thankful that all of them only paid for what they themselves ate.

“Do you think we can kill it by just pouring a lot of water on it?” Dohla asked.

“I don’t think that’s gonna work. But it’ll probably weaken it.” Drake answered.

“Do any of you know any water spells or something?” Ghenn asked looking across the table to Drake and Allura, the main magic wielders of the group.

“I don’t know… We’ll see if we can learn any I guess.” Allura shrugged.

They spent the rest of the dinner coming up with different plans - some more serious than others (“But like we just ask Uriel for his army and then we sneak up on it. Like a thousand soldiers pouring water on it. That should put out its fire, I mean I’m just sayin’,”). The ale was flowing and soon Ghenn had challenged them all to a game of cards. After a bit of talking it was decided that the winner would get to pick bed first in the next inn they chose. Furthermore the loser would be the one to sleep alone in “The Second Tent” as Ghenn called it in a dramatic voice. Them and Dohla had found a man selling tents while looking around for useful things in one of Emon’s many markets. It only had enough room for four people, so they had had to buy two. No one knew if they would ever need to be used, but it seemed to be a general consensus – that being one between Dohla, Drake and Allura - that they all would try to prepare for as many scenarios as possible.

“Can’t we just divide it two and three?” Allura asked with a concerned expression while Dohla handed out the first cards.

“Nah, that wouldn’t be as fun to compete for!” Dohla smiled at her.

Kima made sure to check if Ghenn, or just anyone really, were cheating. No one seemed to be, and in the first rounds Kima did great. She won a few matches and was almost beating Allura, who had done exceedingly well. But after a few rounds she started to lose more often and it didn’t take long until both Dohla and Drake had surpassed her.

“Ha! Not last at last!” Ghenn said excitedly as they won the next round, putting Kima in last place.

“Damn it!” she yelled and threw down her cards on the table in defeat. She had not seen any sketchy moves from them so she just had to accept the outcome of the game. But she still shot them a suspicious look.

“Okay last round.” Drake said as he shuffled and handed out the last cards. What followed was an intense final game. Allura and Dohla were battling for the win and both Ghenn and Drake could still lose.

“Three queens!” Drake exclaimed as the last person revealing cards, beating Allura’s two and winning the round. Kima crossed her arms angrily, she had lost. Big time. She really was the worst at games against these people.

“I’m going to bed.” She said and stood up a bit too quickly. She almost sat back down when the room started spinning but was determined to get away from the group. “Move!”

She made her way out of their booth with some difficulty and nodded towards Allura.   
“Congratulations.” She said with a half genuine, half annoyed smile.

“I see that we have a sore loser.” Dohla laughed and patted Kima’s back. “Sleep well!”

Kima gave her and angry look, which she immediately regretted when she saw the worried expression on the other’s faces, before turning around and walking toward the stairs. She slammed the door to her room shut and sat down on her bed. On the nightstand there was a bottle of ale and she drank the remaining liquid, taking her holy symbol in her hand and closing her eyes. She said a quick prayer to her platinum dragon and forced herself to breathe slowly.

 _“Don’t let your rage get in the way of having allies. Aim it instead to the task you have ahead of you.”_ She recalled one of the priests in her home temple telling her. She felt a sting of home-sickness shoot through her, but she managed to keep her breathing slow. At this point she was not sure whether she was angrier about losing the game or screaming at her friends.

Her ritual was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Hey, you there Kima?” She heard Allura’s voice from the other side. Kima sighed and went to let her inside. She opened the door slowly, looking down to avoid Allura’s judging expression. Allura came in and sat down on her bed, but when Kima finally looked at her she only saw a concerned expression. She gestured at the candle on her nightstand.

“May I?”

Kima nodded. She hadn’t cared to light it, having decent dark vision, but Allura was a human. She moved her hand in a small pattern and the candle immediately lit up, giving the small room a bit of light, and then turned to Kima.

“Are you okay?” She asked and gave her an understanding smile.

“Yeah… Well not really, honestly. I’m sorry about earlier. I’ve never been that great at controlling my anger I guess.” She sat down beside Allura looking down on her hands.

“Why today?” Allura asked. Kima hadn’t expected that question and took a moment before answering.

“I’ve… never liked losing. Makes me feel weak or something I guess. Guess I just was tired of never winning against you all and the anger just… burst out.”

“Are you feeling like you’re weaker than us?”

Allura had asked the right question and in her semi-drunken state Kima poured out her feelings.

“I mean, I don’t know. You’re all so great you know. Dohla is really good at being stealthy and stuff and Ghenn is soo strong? Drake can get information out of anybody! He isn’t even that charming? I don’t get how he does it. And you! You are like the greatest wizard I’ve ever met! Making bags as a child, like wow. I’m just like… I don’t know. I can’t even concentrate on a book long enough. I just wanna punch some stuff you know? Feel the glory of battle.”

Without any thought she tiredly put her head on Allura’s shoulder and tried to continue her concentrated breathing, closing her heavy eyelids once again. Allura didn’t seem to mind. She put her hand on Kima’s hair and started stroking it slowly.

“Well, you found that book today.” She said. “And we’ve mostly play games of luck, so that’s not really your fault. You’re also the only one here with healing spells, so we need you regardless of how good _you_ think you are. And we all think you’re great by the way.”

Kima didn’t answer and a few minutes went by in silence.

“I’m sure the others don’t mind your outburst either. I think they’d still like to play cars with you. Just try to not let it get out of hand next time.”

“Easier said than done.” Kima muttered.

“We’ll all be there for you Kima.” Allura assured her.

Kima nodded, not quite sure how a person she had only known for a few days could be so kind.

“Maybe I’m just a sad drunk.” She mumbled as she slowly laid down her head in Allura’s lap. She was so tired. She’d probably feel better in the morning if she could just sleep…

Allura continued to move her hand through her hair. Maybe she could have braided it if it had been longer. Her anger slowly subsided and was taken over by fuzzy, incoherent thoughts as she left her conscious mind and fell into a deep sleep.

After a while Allura carefully put Kima’s small, halfling head on top of her pillow and tucked her into bed. She blew out the candle and silently made her way out of the room.

”Good night Kima.”


	3. Ambush

“Looks like those tents are gonna come in handy after all!” Dohla almost sang to the party as Drake gave them the news. She shot an _I told you so_ look towards Ghenn and Kima, who both looked at each other and rolled their eyes at the gnome who was already making her way back to where they had come through the teleportation circle.

“How many days’ travel?” Allura asked Drake who was still holding the paper where they had just received the message.

“I’m not sure. Hopefully not too many, or else he’ll have left to go somewhere else. Again.”

“If we only had been here sooner.” Kima muttered under her breath and kicked one of the rocks on the ground. Her foot raised a small cloud of orange dust that slowly settled down in the same place.

“What?” Allura asked.

“Nothing.”

Kima kept her head down concentrating on the sand landing on her shoe. She wondered if there was ever any wind in this place. She would sure love a cold breeze.

“Well at least we’re getting out of this heat!” Ghenn said, capturing Kima’s exact thoughts.

“Aw, can’t handle a warmth?” Dohla mocked, “It’s not even summer here yet!”

“Well, it’s not my fault I was born in the coldest place you can find in all of Exandria! You’ve got a head start! Just you wait until we get somewhere with snow!”

They joke-fought all the way back to the mansion, laughing about snowball fights and sandcastle-building. Kima joined in the conversation only to say that she was sure that she could beat them both.

 

It didn’t take long until they arrived to the high fences surrounding the house that held the teleportation circles. They were probably twenty feet tall, with sharp spikes at the top. Kima had the feeling that the city, or the person owning the mansion, didn’t want people to come and go as they pleased. There stood two guards by the gate, looking suspiciously at the people walking by. Half-orcs with heavy armour and large axes. Kima felt the weight of her maul on her shoulder, knowing it was not nearly as powerful, or had the size of, their weapons. “What’s your business?” one of them asked as they approached. It was not the same guards as had been there when they arrived. Drake stuck his hand into one of his many pockets and held out a small wooden disk with the symbol of Emon.

“We’re came on a mission for sovereign Uriel, we would like to use the teleportation circle to get to Kymal.” He sounded confident, but they all knew how much trouble they had had to go through getting into the city. They had been asked questions after question about why they were here, where they came from, and why on earth they had just barged through their teleportation circle without notifying Miss Narcissa beforehand. Apparently Uriel had forgotten, or not cared to tell her.

 

The guard grunted as she inspected the symbol.

“Okay.” She then said after some consideration, “But ya better be silent. The headmistress is still sleeping and she don’t like to be disturbed.”

They all nodded and were granted passage. As the gates closed after them Ghenn let out a relieved sigh.

“We did it guys!” They said and relaxed a bit. “Let’s try to be real quiet. I don’t want to wake up Lady Narcissa.”

They all nodded, remembering her stern looks at them when they had arrived to the city four days ago. Uriel had described her as “a great ally, but not someone you’d want to get on the wrong side with.”

Kima was still amazed by the fact that she had been standing in the sovereign’s throne room and _talked_ to him. She never thought she’d be in a position to talk to a head of a city. Furthermore she had always thought of those with power as unreachable people who did not care about people like her. But Uriel had seemed unusually welcoming and polite.

 

The mansion (well it was honestly more of a palace, Kima thought) towered up in front of them as they got closer. Made of exquisite white stone and with several pillars holding up a grand staircase and intricate carvings all around the walls to show anyone walking by how rich the person living in it was. Kima hadn’t gotten a very good look at it when they got here - they had hastily made their way away from their uncomfortable interrogation situation - but now she could see the building in all its glory. She rolled her eyes at an especially over-the-top statue of the Lady of the house herself surrounded by various animals.

“Do you think she’s a druid?” Ghenn asked Dohla.

“Yeah, she is actually. One of the most powerful druids in all of Marquet. Her mom comes from the Earth Ashari and I think she lived there for a few years as a kid. Her father is from here though. She followed in his footsteps and became a protector of the city when he died.”

Dohla told them about Lady Narcissa excitedly. She looked much more confident than she had the other days. To know that there was Efreeti who could kill people with games and treacherous words that was roaming about her home city had taken a toll on her and she had made a visit to her family one of the evenings. None of them were hurt but they had heard some stories from neighbours and she returned saddened, but not grieving, to the team’s relief. Now that the Efreeti had left else the usual skip in her steps had returned. Kima looked at Allura and nodded towards Dohla with a smile. Allura understood her hint and smiled back. The team was back in a good mood.

“Cool!” Ghenn said as they approached the large, wooden door to the mansion. But instead of going up the stairs to it they turned left to a much smaller door. One made for staff and the one they had walked out of when they got here. Narcissa had not seen enough nobility in them to let them through the main entrance, or she had been upset at their unannounced arrival, so they thought best to do the same now.

 

The smaller door opened only seconds after they knocked and they were greeted by one of the maids, the same one that had shown them out. She was a shorter elf with clad in green robes and with a friendly face. She had her dark hair put up in a tight bun and lit up when she recognized the group standing in front of her.

“Back already are you?”

She let them in the room and started leading them to the one with teleportation circles. With silent, quick steps she made her way through the house followed by the group, who had less knowledge about how to silently make their way in there and were more armoured. She had to hush them several times when they walked into sudden unnoticed bookshelves or stepped on creaky floorboards.

“Sorry!” Kima whispered after making an especially loud noise. The elf gave her an annoyed look and hurried them through the last door when an angry voice was heard from upstairs.

The maid nodded towards a man sitting by a desk in front of the circle.

“We’d like to get to Kymal.” Drake said and the man nodded, went to the circle and uttered a few words. It started glowing in a white, pulsing light and they all quickly made their way through before the spell ended. Kima said one last “Sorry.” before she followed the others.

 

* * *

 

 

They were greeted by sunlight, but not as high in the sky, and definitely not as warm. A cold breeze hit the party and Ghenn and Kima sighed in relief. They were standing in the middle of a small town square. The circle they had just walked through did not seem very heavily guarded. It was probably a more general form of transportation here, Kima guessed. One elf stood in front of them and nodded when they appeared.

“Marquet?” He asked and wrote down some notes in a large book that floated in front of him.

“Yes.” Allura answered. “Where is the main gate to the city? We’re traveling elsewhere.”

“Just walk down that street.” The man pointed on what looked like a main road of the city. “You’ll get there in like twenty minutes.”

He didn’t ask any more questions and they made they made their way to the gate. Kima guessed that the man by the desk had notified the guard of their arrival. Seemed like an easier way of doing things. She wondered why everyone didn't think about doing that.

 

What little was left on the day was spent traveling as far as they could get on horseback. When the night fell none of them were really tired - they had adjusted to the Marquet city’s time and it only felt like noon – so they sat up talking for a while eating dinner.

“I kinda miss the heat now.” Ghenn said as they warmed their hands by the fire.

“You’re never happy, are you?” Dohla smirked. “I thought you were supposed to be resistant to cold. Being born in the snow and all.”

Ghenn pouted and pulled their cloak closer.

“I’m going to bed.” They said resolutely walked off to the tent. Dohla was quick to follow.

“I can come warm you!” Kima could hear both of them laugh for a moment and then it went quiet. She could only hear the sound of crickets chirping and the occasional utter of words from Allura, who sat beside her and was testing out some new spells. Drake was sitting opposite to them and was reading a book as usual, this one seemed to be about how to best make use of one’s wand, but he soon also went back to the tent, asking one of them to take the first watch. Kima nodded.

 

She poked with a stick in the fire to watch the sparks dance up into the air until eventually disappearing. She looked into the flames. They didn’t really have the shape of anything, but she remembered an old woman she had walked by at a market when she was younger, who said that she could see the future of people in the flames. She wondered what hers looked like. The fortune-telling had, of course, been a complete scam. Back then the woman had, probably to get her to pay for a session, said she saw a large dragon in her future. Kima, who by then had been wearing her holy symbol visibly, had only rolled her eyes and walked away.

 

“How do you remember them all?”

“What?” The small lights that had been floating around Allura disappeared, leaving the grounds much darker when her head turned towards Kima.

“How do you remember all the spells?” She moved closer to look inside the book Allura was holding out in front of herself. “I only know a few spells, so it’s easy to keep track of. But you have an entire book! It must be difficlt.”

“Yeah, these are only a start too. There are more things I can learn down the line.”

“Wow.”

“Usually I have a few spells remembered - you can’t have all of them in your brain at once, there’s too many – so if I feel like I’ll need one I’ll practise it and then hopefully remember it. It gets easier, I can remember a lot more spells now than when I started out as a wizard. You learn most of the easier one’s after a while.”

“What are you learning now?”

“Well I’m trying out some spells from chapter four. I’m trying to learn how to control water, I’m wondering if it might be useful in our fight with the Efreeti. There’s also one that could be good if we want to trap him. I can do that. I’m not sure how we’ll be able to get him back to Emon though.”

“You still don’t want to kill him huh?”

Allura looked down and it took a while before she answered.

“I don’t think it’s right to… just kill him you know? I’d rather have him stand trial for his crimes. The less blood spilled… But I’ll fight if I have to.” She looked up at Kima with a troubled face and she could see how torn she felt. Kima reached out and put one of her hands on Allura’s. The other one she put around her shoulder, her hand reached up into Allura’s hair. It was greasy and filled with twigs and bugs after days in heat and one spent traveling through the forest. But it was also very soft and Kima found that she wanted to stay sitting like this. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, but she remembered that Allura had done it when Kima had felt bad before, and that had felt… surprisingly nice. Allura leaned in towards her.

“I’m okay but, thank you.” She said and wrapped one of her arms around Kima in a small hug. They sat in silence for a while. Kima’s hand absentmindedly traced patterns on Allura’s shoulder.

“I love fighting.” She started suddenly. “I know I’m good at it and it makes me feel strong. When you lose in a fight you can at least say that you fought well. And when you win, well, then you just know it. Then there’s the real fights. The life or death ones. I love them too, but sometimes I’m also scared. I learned to fight as a kid, when people were mean to me I punched them back. But everyone just thought I was a trouble. My own _parents_ didn’t even care what had happened. They just wanted a benevolent daughter.

 

An old paladin found me one day – I had run away from home I think, I barely remember it. He took me in and taught me how to be a paladin too.” She fished up her holy symbol from underneath her chainmail. “Bahamut want us to fight for justice, but sometimes I’m not sure if it’s his justice I’m fighting for, or my own.”

Allura nodded.

“We all try our best and I guess that’s all we can do.” She answered with a sigh. Kima wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince her or herself. She held Allura a little tighter.

“What kind of spells can you do?” Allura asked.

Kima looked down at her holy symbol.

“Mostly protective ones, for me or people close to me. I can make your skin and armour stronger against something, heal, and notice evil stuff around me. Bascally-” But she couldn’t finish her sentence. There was a sudden sting of pain in her left arm and she looked down to see an arrow embedded in her skin.

“What the…”

Then chaos ensued. A threatening war-cry-like scream came from the closest trees and towards them ran two orcs, as two more arrows shot past them, missing Allura only by a few inches. They both quickly stood up and Allura looked towards the tent where the rest of the party were sleeping.

“We’re being ambushed!” She cried out. The worried eyes had been replaced with determination. Allura was readying herself for battle. She warded off the next arrows and managed to shoot a spell at one of the approaching orcs, while running to the tent. Kima quickly grabbed her maul, which had been resting at her side during the evening, and sprinted away towards the orcs. _Finally._ She thought, but shot a look to Allura as she ran past her.

“You're not getting away with this!” Kima shouted as she made her first swing at the orc, mumbling a few words to her dragon to fill her with strength. She hit the orc in the abdomen leaving a gaping wound, but he barely made a sound and swung at her with a large axe. It hit her in the shoulder, cutting partially through her armour and hitting flesh, and she almost lost her balance, but she managed to stay standing. Behind her she could hear the voices of the newly awoken rest of the team. They were quick to action and she could hear spells being uttered by Drake, and a few daggers hit the orc in front of her, thrown by Dohla. One went right through his eye with a squishing noise which made him cry out in anger. He made another attack against Kima, who luckily managed to duck away just in time, but another arrow hit her chest.

“You guys take that one and me and Kima take this! And someone take care of that archer!” Allura shouted as she ran back to Kima. She had turned into full combat-mode. A side of Allura that Kima had never seen before – granted the only sides she had seen during the days they had known each other was reading Allura, Allura playing cards, and Allura being really excited to visit a city in Marquet for the first time -. It was like she had pushed all her doubts away and only focused on how to best survive the current encounter.

 

She shot away three magical darts at the orc as she came to Kima’s aid, but stayed out of aim from his axe. The orc stumbled backwards and Kima took this opportunity to strike once more, jumping up and hitting his arm this time. She could hear a bone breaking and his axe came down at her again as he tried to get rid of his small inconvenience.

“Should have gone for his battle arm.” Kima muttered moving away just in time. Just as she did a large wall of fire appeared in front of her, surrounding the orc and burning him badly.

More arrows came out from somewhere in the trees, catching Allura off guard as she cast the spell. They all buried into her chest, easily shooting though her leather armour. Kima, who was turning around to give her a thumbs up, saw her falling, almost as in slow motion.

“No… Allie!”

Allura hit the ground with a small thud and the world turned into a blur as Kima dashed to her side. 

“Allie?”

She sat down beside her and started pulling the arrows out as quickly as she could while still being careful. She took Allura’s head in her hands and whispered a few words and prayer to Bahamut for the arrows not to be poisoned. There must have been something about them, taking Allura down so fast. She could see some of the wounds closing and healing and Allura’s eyes flutter open.

“Allie?”

Allura looked confused for a second before remembering where she was and what had happened.

“Don’t you dare fall unconscious like that ever again!” Kima said relieved, but still worried. She uttered another healing spell and saw the rest of the wounds close up and disappear.

“Allie… I like that.” Allura said with a kind of smile Kima had never seen her make before. Behind them they heard a growl and they simultaneously attacked the orc who was now approaching after Allura’s spell had been broken. Kima threw her maul as Allura hit him with a wave of thunder and the orc fell down again, uncontious this time. Allura chuckled.

 “We make a great team.”

“Yeah. We do. Thanks for burning that orc.”

“Thank you for healing me.” Allura said as she sat up with some difficulty.

“You can actually fight!” Kima said after a moment of silence where they looked at their fallen attacker. She was panting still affected by the adrenaline rush the fight had given her.

“Yeah, like you said, it’s what you have to learn if you want to survive in this world.” Allura shrugged and looked away towards what were now corpses. Drake and Ghenn had taken down and was searching the other orc as Dohla had made her way to the trees to get the archer. In her mind she could hear Ghenn and Dohla fighting later about who would get the gold (“They’re going to the party funds.” Drake sighed and shook his head).

“What makes this different from the Efreet?” She asked Allura.

“Self-defence.”

She answered quickly, like she had said the same thing many times before, but it didn’t quite sound like she believed it herself. Kima gave her a confused look.

“But won’t that fight be defence too? Maybe not for us, but for other’s. We’re preventing more deaths by doing it.”

“I don’t know. Probably. But I’ve always wanted to believe that there was… more peaceful ways to do things.” She raised her hand to Kima’s cheek and placed it there for a short moment. “I envy your conviction. Maybe one day I’ll be as sure of myself as you are so often.”

She then took Kima’s hand and squeezed it, and for a second Kima could swear that her heart skipped a beat. Then the moment passed and Allura turned towards the rest of the group.

“I think we need to get some more rest.” But before they could all agree, Dohla came out from the trees with someone by her side. It was a small dragonborn, rubbing his wrists where there were markings left by ropes too tightly bound. He looked at them with both gratefulness and fear as they approached.

“They had a prisoner.” Dohla said as she led him towards the group. Kima and Allura walked up to them.

“What’s your name?” Allura gave him a small smile as Kima slowly walked towards him. He looked rough and had a number of cuts across his body. She put her hand on his arm and used what was left of her healing.

“Uh… Sirius.” He said and nodded a “thank you” to Kima. He already seemed a lot more comfortable and looked around the glade with concern. “Have any of you seen a lute? They stole it from me. Said they were gonna sell it. I had hoped that they hadn’t managed to do that yet.”

Everyone shook their heads and Sirius looked down, defeated. Kima could see tears gathering in his eyes.

“Let’s go to bed for now. We’re all really tired and it’s dark out. We can look for the lute tomorrow.” Drake said with a sigh. “We gathered all we could from the orcs.”

“I checked the archer.” Dohla said and held up a bow and small pouch, probably with a few gold pieces inside, that she had been carrying.

“I’d say he could sleep in my tent but I’m not sure if I trust him yet.” Kima said looking down at the dragonborn with a stern face. Sirius face didn’t change, he seemed preoccupied with scanning the grounds for his lute. Drake nodded understandingly as he handed the boy some of their food rations.

“He can sleep in our tent and someone else can sleep yours.” He suggested. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thank you.” Sirius said with a smile and hurried inside the one Drake pointed out to him. Only seconds later they could hear him snoring. Drake followed and soon after Ghenn and Dohla too, who so far hadn’t spent a night apart. Kima had sometimes heard them late at night when she couldn't sleep. Talking to each other about anything and everything. They seemed to have bonded quickly and became best friends almost overnight. Kima watched them go and then went to what was now apparently her and Allura’s tent, when she realised that she could, in fact, move her heavy legs, and needed to if she wanted to get into bed. She rubbed her eyes slowly and yawned. The rush had faded and she was now exhausted.

“No watch?” She asked as Allura followed her inside the tent.

“I think that the odds of us being ambushed twice in the same night are pretty low. Besides I’m really tired.”

Kima nodded as she took one of the bed-rolls inside, put it on the ground and tried to get out of her armour. It wasn’t the easiest task, with deep cuts all over.

“Aren’t you going to heal up first?” Allura asked as she took a roll for herself.

“I used it all up. I have no energy left for spells now. It’s okay.” She said and tried not to gasp as she accidentally touched a wound while taking off her shoulder plate.

“We have healing potions.” Allura said, rummaging through the bag of holding she was always carrying. She quickly found one and held out to her.

“We’ll need that for the big fight.” Kima shook her head and continued her un-armouring, more carefully this time. She just wanted to get into bed, why did armour have to take so long to get off?

“We have plenty more, just take it.” Kima looked up and saw a stubborn-faced Allura. Kima could feel that she wouldn’t budge and was sure she had heard her pain.

“Fine.” She took the potion, without looking in Allura’s eyes and drank it in one go. She could feel a warm sensation spreading through her body and the pain slowly subsided. It felt better than she cared to admit.

“Thank you.” She said as she crawled inside of her roll, she could hear Allura do the same.

“Thank you.” Allura answered. Kima wasn’t sure what it was for, but as silence fell and Allura fell asleep she tried not to think about it. About any of it.

 _"I envy your conviction."_ and Allura's hand in hers spun around in her head.

She was only thankful that no one had mentioned anything about how the attack had been all their fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally finished this! Took a while because of school, but hope ya enjoyed.


	4. A Festival

The sun was growing closer to setting and the party stepped out of yet another tavern. There had been no signs of an Efreeti.

“Should we just call it a day?” Allura rubbed her eyes and pulled her cloak closer a cold wind hit the group. Kima was, for once, thankful for her heavy armour that trapped some heat close to her body.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll find him here. He’s probably already further into the city.” Dohla said, looking defeated.

“We’ve only been here a day. I’m sure an… Efreeti? Was that what you were looking for?” Kima nodded, “Will not be too hard to find in a mostly human city?” Sirius said with enthusiasm. He hadn’t had anywhere to go so he had followed them on their journey, to tell the tale of their adventure. He had asked them thoroughly on what they had been doing before they found him in the woods. Kima wasn’t sure what was so interesting with a group of people sitting and reading books all day, but Dohla had given a detailed and dramatic explanation that even made Drake raise his head.

“We might as well just have a bit of fun before dinner.” Allura said and looked around the street. “Why don’t we go to the town square?”

She pointed at a poster hanging one of the closer walls.

 

CELEBRATE THE FIRST FLOWER OF THE YEAR! COME TO THE TOWN SQUARE! FIREWORKS AT 8!

 

“Sounds like a plan!” Kima said and they all headed there as soon as they had asked for directions. Kima could hear music and voices and as they stepped out to a large square filled with merchants. At the very end was a large wooden stage where a band of musicians was playing. She could see tables where people played cards and an area where you could compete and win prizes.

“Lutes!” Sirius yelled excitedly and parted from the group. Drake went up to a stall where they sold jewellery.

“I bet I can win that hoop game.” Dohla said and nudged Kima in the side.

“I bet I can win against you in arm-wrestling.” Kima smiled and nodded towards a few tables where a number of people were gathered.

“Hoops first, then we go!” Dohla nodded and they hurried to the hoops. In front of the small patch of land made for the hoop course dragonborn woman waited. Her red scales and long tale stood out against the rest of the people around but she didn’t seem bothered and smiled at them as they approached.

“Ten gold for five throws.”

“All right.” Dohla said and handed the woman her money. Kima looked down into her scarce pouch, but did the same. She assured herself that she’d win back her money and besides, after their job was done she’d definitely have money. Dohla went first, walking up to the line marked in the dirt, and aimed at the stick sticking out of the ground a few feet away. Kima realised that this may not have been the best thing to challenge Dohla at. Her daggers rarely missed their target and as Dohla threw the hoop with her rogue precision Kima was reminded of it. Four out of five of her throws ended up around the stick and she clapped her hands excitedly as she went to claim her prize: five gold pieces for every hit.

“Let’s see if you can beat that!”

Kima turned out to not be horrendous at the game and managed to get three out of five after doing her best to try and not let herself be affected by Dohla’s results. When her fist throw hit she felt a bit more confident and when she missed she could take it. She had won her money back too.

“Hey not bad!” Dohla smile and patted Kima on the shoulder. “Let’s go see who the strongest, shall we?”

They made their way back to the gathering of tables where several arm-wrestling matches were taking place. You could hear laughter and cheering from far away and as they came closer it became almost deafening. On a board behind the largest table were a list of names and lines drawn. There seemed to be a tournament going on and they were down to the final eight. Currently a goliath and a human were battling. Kima and Dohla stopped to watch it play out. The human seemed to have the upper hand but the goliath’s face was determined and soon he had pushed his arm back to the equal point and then pushed her arm down on the table. The crowd cheered and some cursed in disappointment as money went around to whomever had guessed the winner correctly. Kima and Dohla cheered as the goliath roared victoriously and then went up to the man standing by the scoreboard as two other contestants sat down by the table.

“If you wish to join the tournament I’m afraid you’re a bit too late.” He gave them an apologetic look as he moved up the goliath’s name further on the board.

“We just want a table.” Dohla assured him. The man nodded.

“There’s an empty one over there.” He pointed to the edge of the small area, “Five gold, please.”

Dohla nudged Kima and nodded towards the man.

“Of course.” She gave the man the five gold she had won. She was back to the same amount of money as she had started with. It seemed to her almost like a robbery to charge for using a table. But she was eager to know who of them was the strongest, so she obliged. As they sat down Kima leaned her maul beside her on the table and a few people gathered around to watch. They placed their elbows on the table and grabbed each other’s hands. Dohla looked at Kima with determination and Kima looked back without wavering.

“May the strongest one win.” Kima smiled viciously. She could feel the adrenaline rising in her body.

“May the strongest one win.” Dohla echoed, smiling back.

A man in the crowd counted them down. As he reached zero both Kima and Dohla tensed and started pushing the other’s arm down. Dohla was strong. Kima could feel her almost winning a bit of distance, but like Dohla with hoops this was her home turf and she was ready. Taken by surprise that her push hadn’t worked Dohla relaxed if only for a fraction of time and Kima used this to her advantage and gave a little more strength to push her down. Their arm’s moved a few inches, but Dohla didn’t give up. She gave another hard push that regained her a bit of distance, but Kima still had the upper hand and as soon as you did everything became a lot easier. With all her might she pushed her arm down further, still keeping her eyes locked on Dohla’s. She could feel Dohla’s arm shaking, she was getting tired, and, with her smile widening, Kima closed the distance between Dohla’s arm and the table. The crowd, which she had completely forgotten about in until then, cheered for her and she raised her arm victoriously. Dohla looked defeated and a bit disappointed, but not sad. She held out her hand toward Kima who took it.

“Congratulations.” She said with a nod.

“Well played.” Kima answered, still smiling widely, and shook her hand.

“I suppose you’d like your five gold back?” Dohla held out a hand of coins.

“Suppose so.” Kima put the money in her, once again heavier, pouch and looked around. “What next?”

Before Dohla had a chance to answer a voice came from behind them.

“How’s it going?”

They turned around to see Allura walking up to them, sweets in her hand and with new ribbons in her hair.

“I just won against Dohla arm-wrestling!” Kima flexed jokingly. Allura laughed and Kima’s heart fluttered slightly at the sound.

“Hey congratulations!” She patted Kima on the back and held out her sweets. “I got some candied apples, anyone want?”

“Did I hear candied apples?” Ghenn suddenly appeared behind them and everyone jumped in surprise. They were wearing their hair up with new, sparkling pins in it. Most had flowers on them.

“Is this a new team thing now? Appearing behind others?” Dohla sighed as they both accepted Allura’s offering. “Where did you go?”

“They had free massages over there!” Ghenn pointed towards a small tent beside the stage. “And look they did my hair too! Now I’m even more handsome.”

They smiled flirtily and turned around to show off their new look. Dohla rolled her eyes.

“It suits you.” Kima smiled and took an apple for herself.

“Yeah, it does you dimwit.” Dohla patted Ghenn on the back.

Meanwhile Kima inspected her sweet with interest. She had never seen anything like it before and she wondered what it would taste like. It looked like an apple on a stick with something see-through and shiny coated on it. When she licked on it she realised it was sugar.

“What have you been doing?” Ghenn asked as they took a bite of their apple.

“Just won against Dohla in arm-wrestling!” Kima declared, making her proud pose once again. Ghenn looked at them both with envy.

“Hey no fair! I wanna do that too!”

“We already know that you’re the strongest of all of us.” Dohla said with a smile and gave their evidently large muscles a meaning look. “You should have joined the tournament! But it’s too late now unfortunately.”

Ghenn made a nonchalant shrug and smiled back.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Let’s compete in something else then! Wanna join Kima?” Ghenn turned towards her as they started walking away, but Kima stayed.

“Nah. I think I’ll just go to the market and look around instead or something.” She answered.

“Okay! See you guys for the fireworks later then!” They shouted.

“Sounds like a plan!” Allura shouted back.

“So: Where to go next?” She turned to Kima who looked around the square. It was getting darker and all around people were lighting lanterns and putting up floating, arcane orbs of light. “The fireworks aren’t until in about half an hour so we have some time.”

“Let’s just walk around for a bit.” Kima said and they made their way to the market part of the square. They ate their apples while they walked around looking at the all the different items for sale. It was a peculiar sweet, Kima realised. You had to bite hard to break through the solidified, melted, sugar, but once you did it tasted sweet and fresh. To Kima it was a perfect reward for the hard work of your teethd and when Allura gave up on hers Kima ate that one too.

“There seems to be a theme going on here.” Kima said as they walked by the seventh cart filled with items decorated with flowers.

“Well, it is a festival for a flower.” Allura said as she picked up a necklace and tried it on. It was a simple chain with a small, white rose hanging from it. One of the less obnoxiously flowery things they had walked by in Kima’s mind. The colour matched the white details of her dress perfectly and she looked at her friend in awe. She looked really pretty.

“What do you think?” Allura asked.

“I’ve seen worse.” Kima quickly looked away and shrugged, hoping Allura hadn’t noticed her staring. Allura gave her a questioning look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, I, uh… Just… I’m not that much of a flower person. It looks good on you though.” She scratched the back of her head and smiled nervously. She could feel heat rising to her cheeks. She couldn’t say anything right, could she?

Allura just chuckled and gave the seller her money and they started walking away.

“You’re very cute Kima.”

Kima could feel the heat rise further.

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t you want to buy anything?” Allura asked after waling about for a bit.

“If I find something cheap that’s not completely covered in flowers maybe.” Kima answered and looked suspiciously at the items they walked by. No cart they had walked by had broken the theme of the evening.

“What about there then?” Allura pointed to a stand opposite the one they were at. The owner was a man who looked extremely bored, but on a shelf beside him were items that seemed flower-free. Kima’s gaze went to the top if it, where she saw a few shining helmets, that would go well with her armour. She did already have one, but these looked way cooler. As they got closer they realised that it wasn’t a shop but that they had walked around the square coming back to the area filled with games and tournaments. Kima still felt the high of winning the arm-wrestling and continued heading towards the stand.

“I’m gonna win some more.”

On a table in front of her was pyramid of mugs and the goal seemed to be to knock them all down. She looked up at the helmets.

“How much?”

“Three gold to play.” The man said in a monotone voice and gave her five small balls. They felt light in her hands and she realised that it would be difficult to throw these as far as she needed to. She looked suspiciously on the man, who just stared at her with a blank face. She had already given him her money and she had a feeling that she wouldn’t get them back if she asked.

She aimed the first ball at the mugs trying not to let the irritation affect her, thinking instead about the prize she’d win if she succeeded. It missed its target by several inches, landing on the ground in front of the pyramid. She sighed, picking up the next one. It landed closer this time, but still not far enough. The man’s expression didn’t change, but she could see a glimmer of something spiteful in his eyes. Stay calm. She thought to herself, hands starting to tremble slightly.

Kima could feel anger rising as she missed the third throw and she cursed at the ball and herself. The man’s face was as straight as ever, but she could feel him mocking her in her mind. Bloody scammer. As she took a deep breath to calm herself down she could feel a hand in hers. She looked up to see Allura giving her a reassuring nod and she felt some confidence build up inside her. Just like they had taken down that orc together a few days ago, with Allura’s help, she could win this game. Remembering their conversations she realised that no one was mocking her either, she was probably just overthinking.

Kima aimed carefully for the fourth time and inhaled. On her exhale she threw the ball at the stack of mugs. It hit its target with a satisfying smack and the pyramid fell to the ground.

“You did it!” Allura exclaimed as she gave Kima a high five.

“Congratulations.” The man in the booth said, voice unchanged. He reached up toward the shelf to give her the prize. “Fourth prize for the fourth ball.”

Kima watched as he didn’t grab a helmet, but instead gave her a small stuffed animal in the shape of a lizard laying some shelves below them. She looked down on it with disappointment. It was light green with darker green zigzags on its back and had two buttons for eyes. To be fair it looked kind of cute. But what was she supposed to do with a stuffed animal? She wasn’t a kid. She shot the man another irritated look as she put it in her bag, picked up her maul and walked off with Allura, but he was preoccupied with new customers.

Bloody scammer.

She felt the weight of her holy symbol on her chest and it reminded her to not go back to try and steal back her money. At least she had won something, she though and sighed. 

“It’s very cute! Are you gonna name it?” Allura asked lowering her voice as they got closer to the stage, where the fireworks would start. They joined with their group and sat down as the show began. Kima glanced at Allura, not really listening to what the announcer said. She looked beautiful in the dim lights, with her new jewellery and her hair sparkling in the lantern light like the most treasured of gems, and Kima got an idea.

“No… I thought you could name him.” She reached into her own, small bag and held out her prize towards Allura. She looked back at Kima with surprise, but Kima thought she could see a hint of joy in her eyes. Kima shrugged and gave her a smile.

“A cute lizard for a cute girl.”

Allura gave Kima a hug, letting go of the hand she had still been holding. This Kima realised first then and looked down into her, now empty, palm. It looked the same as before, but it didn’t feel like it.

“Now I’ll have something to remember you by after the mission is over!” Allura said with a smile. Kima looked up and clenched her hand in fear as the words hit her.

After the mission is over.

She had almost forgotten that her new band of friends was indeed a new band. It felt like they had known each other for much longer. Kima looked off to the side where Ghenn and Dohla sat and whispered to each other, like best friends would. Best friends who had known each other for so long that no one even remembered how they first met. But it had only been, what, about two weeks? Definitely less than that. Sirius sat beside her and hugged, not a new lute, but a fiddle (“Figured the old instrument gave me bad luck considering everything that happened to me - which wasn’t just being captured by orcs, mind you – so I though I’d start playing something else.” He’d tell her later) and beside him sat Drake. Both of them listened intently to what the announcer said and the musical number that followed.

Kima didn’t want to leave these people.

“You really think we’re all gonna go our separate ways after this?” She asked Allura.

“I don’t know what else we’d do. Stay together and fight evil? Be those heroes you hear about in stories traveling around the world?” She sighed and looked around her friends like Kima had.

“I think I’d like that.” Kima answered and looked up at the sky as the fireworks started.

“Yeah, I think I’d like that too.” Allura was silent for a moment, both of them enjoying the exploding lights, and then she chuckled.

“What is it?”

“We always have these serious conversations… Let’s go have some fun! Wanna dance?” Kima was surprised by Allura’s sudden suggestion, but she looked exited as she stood up and held out her hand. Kima hesitated for a moment.

“I’m not much of a dancer, and don’t really know how to…”

“It’s okay, I’ll show you!” Allura assured her.

Kima took the hand and they ran up to the small gathering of dancers, of which there were mainly older people. Allura, who was the taller of the two, put her hand on Kima’s shoulder and Kima followed suit by putting hers on Allura’s hip and they started moving to the music. Occasionally Allura spun Kima around. She was relieved by Allura’s skill, and that could just let Allura lead the way. When the tune set to a calmer one they slowed down and stayed in place. Swaying gently from side to side.

“I like the serious conversations though.” Kima said after a moment, picking up their earlier conversation. Allura looked down at her and smiled.

“I do too.”

“Where did you learned to dance like that?” Kima then asked.

“My parents taught me. It was proud family tradition.”

Silence fell between them again, not an uncomfortable one but the calm, slightly dazed one, you have when both parties are too tired to talk. Kima leaned in closer and put her head on Allura’s chest as they looked up at the sky. The fireworks had ended and above them were stars. The big tree in the centre of the square had small lanterns in it and in a way it resembled the sky above. A few leaves had sprouted, although not too many yet, and on one of the branches a single flower grew. It wasn’t in full bloom yet but you could see the pink petals parting a bit.

“It really is the first flower of the year!” Allura was looking excitedly in the same direction as her. “This tree is going to be beautiful in a few weeks.”

“I think you’re right.” Kima answered. She had never seen a tree like this one before. The only flowered trees had been the small apple ones that grew in the yard of her home-temple in Vasselheim. She had never really tended to them, being more interested in the combat side of serving her dragon and not how to make other priests and paladins food, but she had noted their beauty during spring.

“I almost wish this mission takes time so that I can stay here to see it.” Allura continued.

“We can always come back here.” Kima said, hoping that Allura would get her hint.

“Yeah. We could.” Allura looked down on her and gave her a warm smile, indicating that she understood.

 

* * *

 

 

“Let’s order some dinner I am starving!” Ghenn said as she sat down by the table closest to the door as they walked into their inn for the night.

“Should we really sit here?” Kima asked and glanced at the door, from which it blew a cold wind whenever it was opened.

“I’d say it’s as good as any. I don’t really see another free table.”

Kima muttered as she sat down. They could just wait for a bit. Someone would probably leave their seat soon, but her stomach started rumbling and she realised that the sooner they’d be able to eat the better.

Dinner was filled with laughter and ale, and a few looks from Kima to Ghenn as people went in and out the door, making both of them shiver. Kima told everyone in vivid detail how she had won against Dohla in arm-wrestling and she could see Sirius writing down a few notes. Dohla assured everyone that she had at least won in hoops and Ghenn went over them and Dohla’s games. Sirius played them a song he’d written about the orc-fight, which made them all feel like true heroes for the duration, and Drake and Allura showcased what they had bought. Most thing were souvenirs or things for personal use, but Drake had also managed to find a net they might be able to use for the fight. Kima was sure he had done it for Allura, who still wasn’t sure how she wanted to go about the fight, and she could see her shooting him a thankful look.

When the food was eaten and plates had been cleaned up they started their evening game of cards. It had become a small tradition for at least a few of them (Usually Kima, Ghenn and Dohla, since Allura and Drake often wanted to practise spells) to play a few rounds of cards every night. Even though Drake didn’t always join he held the record for most wins, none of them were quite sure how he did it. Today everyone joined and they had one of their more intense battles in a while. Kima couldn’t hold Allura’s hand, but she felt her support and managed to keep her cool.

In the middle of their third game the door opened again and a cold wind blew in from the outside, knocking a majority of the cards down on the floor.

“God damn it Ghenn, I told you this was a bad table!” Kima sighed, but the cold was quickly replaced by warmth on her back and she relaxed and leaned back. They had at least closed the door quickly.

Another gust of wind hit her and she looked up confused. The door was still open, but it wasn’t cold anymore, and she realised that her friends’ laughter and conversation had gone quiet. They were all looking past her, faces mixed with worry and disgust. She turned her head, but she already knew what she would see. Only a few feet away a tall man was walking through the door. He was shorter than what they had been told, but he still stood taller than anyone else in the room. His small, yellow eyes looked around with interest, eager to find his next victim, they knew, but seeming to everyone else only curious. He went up to the bar and took out a pouch with money ordering something they couldn’t hear. Kima could see the burn marks tracing their way up his flaming arms.

They had found him at last.


	5. The Scourged Rider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did this chapter once again take forever to write? Yes. Was it classes' fault again? Very much so. But also sickness. Anyways here ya go.

“What are we gonna do?” Ghenn leaned in and whispered to the group. Everyone looked around nervously, everything they had planned seemed naïve seeing the Efreeti in person. Just pouring water on him would definitely not be fatal. Kima reached her hand around her maul that stood beside her by the table.

“Well, we can’t attack him here, there are people who could get hurt.” Drake answered shooting Kima a look and then peeked over the other’s gathered heads to find potential exits.

“I say we follow him and attack when he least expects it.” Dohla said grabbing hold of her daggers.

“What are we gonna do about his hound? Is that gonna come too if we attack him? I wouldn’t want to battle the both of them.” Allura looked out the window, where no giant best could be seen. But they had been told that it usually roamed about outside populated areas, killing wildlife in the surrounding forests.

“I don’t think all of us are gonna be needed if we take the dog alone though... The beast was supposed to be weakened as well, right?” Kima asked and Drake nodded.

“Yeah, something happened before they were they banished from the fire plane that did something to both of them.”

“That sounds kinda sad. They are wounded and only have each other.” Dohla shot the Efreeti an almost pitying look, but then remembered who she was talking about and returned to the conversation.

“I suggest a few of us go out for the dog while the others keep an eye out. If need be, try to distract him so that he doesn’t have the chance to get another victim.” Drake suggested.

“I’ll go.” Sirius volunteered. Everyone’s eyes turned to him in surprise.

“Well, I’m not very used to combat… and I don’t think attacking the ‘Big Bad Guy’, so to speak, as my first big fight is going to work in my favour. I need to be train, like, somewhat.”

“Seems reasonable.” Dohla shrugged and then seemed to have a thought. “I think we’re going to have to be as quick as possible for this. If we wait too long to confront him after killing his dog he’s going to notice that something is wrong. So, no time to rest between both of the fights. We’re going to need you arcanists to be able to cast as many spells as possible for the big one, so we can’t let you blow all your energy on something else. I suggest you two,” she looked at Allura and Drake, “stay here and distract him while the rest of us go to the dog.”

Everyone seemed to agree on the plan and started gathering their things. Kima smiled towards Dohla amazed by her intelligence. She learned something new every day about her friends and it always made her feel like she was part of something great.

Dohla handed her daggers to Sirius.

“I still have the bow, you can have these for now so that you can save some spells too. You can handle them right?”

Sirius nodded and accepted the offer.

“Let’s go then!” Ghenn urged.

Everyone nodded and Ghenn, Kima, Dohla, and Sirius stood up. Allura and Drake put their heads together discussing their own plan of action as the rest went out the door, saying goodbye to the arcanists like they just were leaving a night of socialization to go home and rest to draw as little attention to themselves as they could.

* * *

 

It was dark outside except for lanterns hanging off a few walls and doors and Kima was thankful for her Halfling-eyes.

“Okay, so where do we find the hound?” Sirius asked. “It could be anywhere.”

“I have a feeling that it probably isn’t too far away. We did hear about killed animals in the northern region of the town so they’re probably out scouting there. I don’t think it would have stayed there.” Kima said. She wasn’t sure of what she suggested, but it seemed like a reasonable idea.

“Plus, the Rider probably wants him close by.” Ghenn said. “The question is how to find it. It’s a big forest.”

Dohla went around to the corner of the inn and smiled.

“Bait.”

The alleyway was dim lit and filthy. With her dark vision Kima could see that it stood a giant, wooden container, with what she guessed was leftovers and other garbage from the inn inside by one of the walls.

“Jackpot!” Ghenn went up to the container, opened it and immediately took a step back, their smile turning into a grimace. “It smells really bad.”

“We’ll just have to hold our breaths. Okay quickly! Try finding large pieces of meat!” Dohla started digging through the piles of trash and old food.

“This was not what I had made my evening out to be.” Kima muttered and went up to help. Holding her breath for a long time wasn’t one of her strengths and she quickly found out that Ghenn had been right about - maybe even a bit too kind towards - the smell. It was a horrid mixture of old food, and rotten eggs plus something that smelled eerily sweet. She could see gatherings of maggots crawling quickly back into the dark as she lifted pieces of food. Everyone gagged more than a few times and Kima made a mental note to make Dohla pay for this once all this was over.

If both of us survives the night.

She shook the thought out of her head and focused her concentration on the task at hand instead.

“The things we do to save people’s lives.” Ghenn sighed and shook their head as they inspected the pile of meat they had gathered. “That should be enough.”

They all looked at the pile and then down on their hands again.

“Anyone have a spare bag or sack of some sort?” Kima asked.

“I do!” Dohla said. She pulled out an old, dirty sack from within her cloak and used a combination of kicking and pushing to get the bits of food into it without having to touch it again more than she had to. When she was finished she picked up the sack and they started making their way towards the forest. Kima could see tops of threes as they walked past the more open areas and in the moonlight they looked dark and uninviting. She imagined the large hound roaming about in there, silently sneaking up on prey before it made its move, killing it with one bite. She was always excited for a fight, but this opponent was vastly different from what she was used to and she had no idea what to expect. In this fight there would be no “battle arm” to strike with her maul. She contemplated whether it was best to go for the legs or head instead.

“This plan better work.” Sirius said and looked down at his hands in disgust. “I can’t play a fiddle like this!”

“Why would you need to? We’re gonna kill a Hell Hound! What are you gonna do sing it to death?” Kima snorted. Sirius looked offended for a second but then retorted, with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Something like that yes. Bards like me have a few tricks up their sleeves, but I don’t suppose you’d know about that.”

“You better show me what you’ve got then!” Kima gave him a wink, and patted him on the back, wiping some of the slime and foul smelling food on his shirt. She immediately felt a bit more at ease. She wouldn’t fight this fight alone. Four people against one hound couldn’t be too much of a match.

_Right?_

* * *

 

As they neared the outskirts of the forest Kima, after looking desperately around for somewhere to clean her hands, spotted a fountain by one of the fancier buildings.

“Thank Bahamut!” She whispered and alerted her friends. They snuck up to it, trying to make as little noise as possible in their armours. Kima put her hands the water and quickly scrubbed her gloves and the handle of her maul clean, they still smelled bad, but the odour had been reduced at least somewhat and she wasn’t sticky anymore. Sirius put down his fiddle and did the same, nodding a thanks to Kima. Ghenn sighed and for a split second they seemed forget that they were in someone else’s yard and swung out their arms in a relieved gesture.

“Well, I for one feel much bet-“

While not looking they had knocked over Sirius’ fiddle and it fell to the ground in with an unnaturally loud noise.

“Shit.” Dohla cursed and they all hurriedly picked up their things, as lights were turned on in the house and an angry voice was heard from inside, and ran away as quickly as they could and didn’t stop until they had gotten a bit into the forest and took a minute to catch their breaths.

“Sorry, heh.” Ghenn said while the others still panted. Having the best stamina in the group they had recovered quickly and looked down on the moss-covered ground, embarrassed.

“It’s okay. Let’s just find that beast and get back to the others.” Dohla said with a smile and they all started walking again.

It took a while until they found a grove for their plan to be put into place. While they walked they discussed it more in detail as silently as they could. It came to include everyone hiding in, preferably, the trees or elsewhere and staying as still as they could until the hound approached. Then they would attack it.

When they finally found a place Dohla poured the meat out. It hit the ground with wet, smacking sounds and everyone frowned in disgust and moved away. Sirius made a small dead deer appear by the pile using a few, complex handmovements. Kima stared fascinated at the magic. The deer looked very real to her and she hoped it would be the same for the hound as well.

Dohla climbed up one of the trees and readied her new bow, while the others tried their best to hide in the shadows. Then they waited. Kima stood as still as she could, knowing how loud metal armour could be if you weren’t careful, and looked around the grove for movement.

Five minutes passed without anything.

Then ten.

Fifteen.

Kima started wondering if they had picked a bad place. Maybe they should move to another grove? Maybe the hound was with its master, or maybe it had eaten enough for the day? Should they just call the entire plan off?

Then finally Kima could see light in the distance. It almost looked like someone holding a lantern coming closer, but then it grew bigger and bigger. Too large to be a lantern or a torch. As it stepped into the grove she could see that the flames had a shape. They curled in unnatural ways to form a hound and cast an uninviting light around it. She saw in the midst of all of it two lighter orbs, a pair of burning eyes, luckily not seeming to be focused on anything but the deer, and as the hound opened its mouth she could she teeth, impossibly sharp, biting down into the pile on the ground. Somehow the flames had substance and the pieces disappeared into the body one by one. It definitely looked like a creature that spawned in one of the deep depths of hell.

An arrow hit the beast from above and that was the others’ queue to start fighting. They all emerged from their hiding spots as the hound lashed out towards Dohla, and Kima, who stood slightly opposite to her, managed to swing her maul at the hound while it was distracted.

Ghenn went around to the other side of it, pulling out their swords, and between them had it trapped on two sides. As Ghenn passed Kima put her hand on them saying a few words to her dragon to instil courage and strength to them, protecting them from their enemy. She then swung her maul again, hitting the creature on one of its legs. It made an angry growl and turned towards her. Another arrow came from Dohla, but missed this time. From behind her she could hear Sirius whispering words and occasionally throwing a dagger. She was not sure what his words did except that the hound seemed to flinch from time to time. Once she heard him yelling something about how ugly its face looked and just as it turned to her it flinched once again and backed away from Sirius, passing Ghenn. In retaliation it released a breath of impossibly hot fire towards them which hit both Kima and Ghenn who were taken by surprised and Kima didn’t have time to jump away. Both of them screamed out in pain as parts of their flesh got burned and Kima could feel the smell of cooked meat as she stumbled in the darkness unable to see. She managed to catch herself and stay standing and put a shaking hand onto her burning face to try and heal it. The cold relief was short-lived since piercing teeth bit into her arm. The hound had already gotten back up to her and she tried not to scream out in pain. Ghenn, who had managed to save themself from the fire a bit more gracefully than Kima, was not far back, and soon reached them and started slicing at the beast with their swords. The attacks seemed to be starting to make a real impact and Kima saw a few more arrows and a daggers were sticking out from the body. She used what strength she could muster to reach and pick up her maul and hit the beast in the head. She hit, but didn’t make as much of an impact as she had hoped. Then, for some reason, it let her go and jumped towards Ghenn instead. She took the moment to inspect her arm from which there was now coming bit of smoke. The teeth had bit through part of her armour and the heated metal burned the skin underneath. She could feel tears gathering in her eyes from the pain, but her rage distracted her and kept her determined.

_She would not let this goddamn dog win._

If she had only brought some water with her or something to cool the metal with, she though. She would have to heal her arm when it did, or it would just get wounded all over again.

Ghenn, who she realised was standing very close to the pile of meet with a disgusted expression, was swinging their swords on various parts of the hound looking as rough as Kima felt. Without her spell protecting them the hound hadn’t had a hard time biting through their armour. But luckily, the dog was starting to falter. Kima started walking up to it and as she got closer to them the hound turned towards her once again with malicious eyes. It was protecting its dinner, and trying to get more if it could. She managed to get a hit on one of its legs and the beast finally fell to the ground as she heard bones breaking. She hit it again, on the head this time, and as another arrow buried itself into the flames the fire started to fade revealing a thin wolf-like body. Kima could feel the heat on her arm fade and she sighed in relief.

“And that was only the small fight.” Dohla said with a sigh as she jumped down from her elevated position, making a skilful tumble to lessen the impact of the fall.

“At least we’ll have a few more people with us then.” Sirius answered. Everyone nodded and their worry seemed to have lessened a bit for the moment.

“Yeah, and thank Pelor for that!” Dohla said as she picked up what few arrows she could still use.

“Let’s head back.” Ghenn said and started looking around in the small, leather bag they always carried. “I have some potions. Anyone need any?”

They drank one themself and handed one to Kima, who was busy with hastily pulling off the hot, but not still burning, arm-piece of her armour, swearing loudly at the pain. When the metal was pulled over the already wounded flesh she almost fainted and stumbled down on her knees.

“You all right?” Ghenn said with concern. “That fire-breath got you pretty bad huh?” Everyone rushed forward to help her up and Kima shook her head at them. Dohla helped her get the metal off with a swift motion and Kima quickly took the potion and drank it. The effect was immediate, as always, and she soon felt a lot better. She watched as the wound on her arm wound closed, leaving the burn marks on her arm. They didn’t hurt too badly, so she could move her arm freely and she decided not to waste another potion just for that.

“Thank you.” She panted and slowly stood up. Everyone’s eyes were on her and she looked down on the ground to avoid them. When she got her money she’d make sure to buy an enchanted armour which didn’t bloody hurt you when you took it off.

“You’re one tough Halfling you.” Dohla said and patted her on her shoulder with an impressed laugh. “Stronger people would still be on the ground vomiting.”

Kima shrugged as they all started heading back to the tavern, where Drake and Allura would hopefully still be waiting.

“Good job with the archery.” Kima answered a moment later with a small smile. “I’d say you wounded that beast more than all of us together!”

“Well, it’s what I’m here for! Archery is one of my specialities. I’m really glad I got a real good bow. I haven’t been able to shoot with one for a while now. And Sirius made excellent work of those daggers!” Dohla winked at him and Sirius smiled back, doing the same. They both looked as unharmed as they had before the fight and Kima guessed it had been roughest on those up close.

“Maybe I should have chosen that instead in my younger days. I’m not very dexterous but I’m sure I could have learned. Seems a lot less… damaging.” She laughed.

“It is, as long as your opponents aren’t skilled too. I reckon the Efreeti will be a bit different. He’s supposed to have powerful magical weapons and all.” Dohla answered and Kima nodded.

The conversation continued all the way back. They exchanged the tiny bits of knowledge they had gathered fighting the hound and tried to make the beginning to a plan. Most of it was “don’t gather in a cluster in case he also has fire-breath”, but it was better than nothing.

When they got back to the tavern Dohla snuck up to one of the windows and looked inside. They hadn’t been gone for more than an hour and the Efreeti was still there.

“He’s still at the bar.” Dohla told them. “Allura is talking to him and Drake is sitting at our table. Everyone seems pretty calm so nothing can have happened yet.”

At the mention of Allura Kima felt her insides freeze.

 _She’s okay._ She told herself. But the knowledge still filled her with dread. Why was Allura by the Rider’s side? What if he tried to pull one of his tricks on her?

She snuck up to the window and looked inside for herself. Allura sat beside the Rider by the bar and she seemed worried, occasionally glancing in the direction of Drake and the door, but she was alive and well. Much more so than Kima.

“What are we gonna do?” She asked turning back to her friends. They couldn’t just go back inside. It would look very suspicious.

“Just wait a second.” Sirius said to them, sneaking up beside Kima. He then closed his eyes pointing inside the inn, looking very concentrated. Allura’s posture suddenly relaxed and she looked much less worried. So did Drake a few seconds later. Sirius turned back to them and dragged them back to the same alleyway they’d stood in the hour before.

“Okay, so they’ve made a plan on how to lure him out. Allura is showing him some of her magical items and is going to tell him that she can sell him things. They’ll walk out and she’ll lead him to the town square, claiming that they’ll go to her shop, and we’ll jump him. Kinda similar to what we did to the hound actually. Let’s just hope that he’s as unsuspecting! Oh! And Drake said that if they haven’t arrived in ten minutes we should come look for them.”

Everyone looked at Sirius in confusion.

“Like I said. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He said and winked.

“Well, we’d better leave now then, so that we can find places to hide.” Dohla said and everyone except Kima started walking. She took a quick last glance at Allura, who was now holding out a pen to an interested Efreeti. She knew Allura was strong, and the Rider almost looked friendly at the moment, but if he sensed even that even the slightest thing was wrong Kima was sure he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. His plan was probably to kill her anyway, considering all the stories they had heard. She hoped that he at least was unaware that there was currently a price on his head and people after him.

“Kima come on!” Sirius urged and she had to follow. She could only hope that the two archanists were strong enough to manage until the rest of them could get to them if something happened.

* * *

 

When they got to the now empty town square they realised that hiding would luckily not be an issue. There were still several stands out which meant that there were many things to hide behind or under. Dohla considered climbing the large tree before realizing that it was probably pretty flammable and she didn’t want to put this city’s most prized possession in jeopardy and went for a rooftop instead. Sirius hid in one of the stands and Kima behind another one. Ghenn behind a large barrel standing close to the stage. This time they didn’t have to wait as long, but for Kima it felt like eons. She kept glancing around to her friends and then back at the ally from which they had arrived and Allura soon, hopefully, would. After about five minutes a strand of light could be seen coming towards them and soon the shapes of both the Efreeti and Allura appeared. All of them sighed, as silently as they could, in relief and Kima felt a small weight lift from her shoulders. But it wasn’t over yet. She waited patiently and held her hands tightly around her maul. She could feel the adrenaline and excitement rise inside of her despite her worries. This was what she had been waiting for since she toom the job. No turning back now. She just hoped that they were all ready for this. That the plan to trap the Efreeti and bring him back to Emon would work. 

For Allura's sake.

As Allura and the Efreeti got closer Kima could hear them talking about enchanted bags. Particularly ones that would destroy or send away the things you put into them. Kima shuddered when she thought about how the Rider could trick someone into thinking one of those was just a general bag of holding. Allura still seemed tense, but looked calmer than she had, and seemed unharmed and so did Drake, who snuck out behind them a few moments later and hid in the shadows. When they neared the part where Kima was standing an arrow flew through the air, hitting one of the nearby counters.

“What are you doing?” The Efreeti said and looked around the square with suspicion, quickly understanding that this was not just a regular walk. His eyes had glimmered with surprise for only a moment, enabling Allura to back as far away from him as she could. But it quickly switched into intrigue and he pulled out a large sword from a scabbard hiding behind his cloak.

“We’re bringing you to justice.” Kima said with a determined smile on her face stepping out from her hiding place putting an arm on Allura’s shoulder and casting the same spell on her as she had on Ghenn before. A small protection to the giant elemental towering up in front of them. Allura grabbed Kima's hand and squeesed it giving, her the strength she needed. Then Kima ran towards the Rider with a determined brawl, wishing to all the gods that this fight would end well. Ghenn was quick to follow and the Efreeti flinched if only for a second at the image of a small, Halfling woman and a muscular human with two swords running towards him, but he too readied himself.

And so the battle began.

When Kima got close to the Rider she could feel the heat emanating from him. It was almost too hot to bear, much worse than the in comparison small hound. Still she pushed through, prepared to fight, and made her first attack against one of his knees. She managed to hit the unprotected fire-skin mix, with a satisfying smack and smiled widely. The Efreeti retorted by swinging at her, but she was ready and ducked away. At the same time more attacks started coming at him. Sirius threw daggers and Kima saw magic darts, arrows and blue light finding their way to him from her other friends. The Efreeti mainly used his sword, but occasionally he lifted a hand and sent spells out of any of the many rings he had on his fingers. Ghenn hacked at him with their swords, trying to get the rings of but to no avail, and at one point she saw Drake trying to hurl water at him. It hit and made the Efreeti growl in pain, but mainly turned into steam around them. For a second Kima could barely see anything other than flames and water in front of her and she looked up to see the microscopic drops raise in the air, like smoke would from a non-magical fire.

Worth a try at least. She thought, getting too caught up in the moment and paying for it with a bursting pain in her ankle, similar to what she had felt in her arm before. Her next attack missed as she tried to keep her balance and she could feel herself losing concentration on the spell she had cast on Ghenn.

Still not managing to, in his own mind, make enough damage to neither the heavy armoured Kima nor the light footed Ghenn - now on solid ground -, the Efreeti growled and changed his strategy. He ran away from them both and instead towards Drake, who had had only leather plates and a wand. Her maul missed his leg by inches as he moved away, but she charged after. Though with his height and her limp he was more than twice as fast as she was. While running she turned to Sirius and cast Cure Wounds. As she turned back she saw the Efreeti from afar cutting through Drake’s chest with a swift move. The dwarf stumbled backwards, but caught himself and retorted by casting a spell that created a green arrow that shot towards the Rider. Kima noticed the dark burn marks on him pulsing and now it was his turn to back.

Allura took the opportunity to pull out the rope they had bought from the bag of holding and threw an end towards Ghenn. They both started walking behind the Efreeti to try and bind him and Kima, who finally caught up, sent a last healing spell Drake’s way and took a swing at the Efreeti. She aimed for the hand with the sword and the impact from her and an arrow, perfectly aimed by Dohla, made him drop it. As quickly as she could she dragged the heavy sword away from him and Allura and Ghenn twisted and bound the rope around him while Drake held his hand out in a spell to keep the Efreeti in place.

Despite all their precautious he still managed to move his hand just enough to cast a spell. There was a spark of arcane energy and Kima realised too late that it was arcing in her direction. She looked up to see a satisfied smile on the Rider’s face.

“What the…”

The effect was instant and she stumbled back falling down on the ground with a small thud. Her vision went blurry and she couldn’t seem to get her limbs to move. Everything became a haze of sparks and shouts, seemingly in the distance.

_“Kima!”_

A whistle, sending shivers down her spine.

_“You… You killed Cerebus!”_

A loud, agonised growl.

_“Shit, okay, Time for plan B!”_

She felt poison spreading in her blood. Why wouldn't her voice work? If she could only reach one of her healing potions… She should have saved some of her healing… 

Then something hit her and her vision went black.


	6. Epilogue

“Allie…?” When she woke up again there was a moment of confusion. Where was she? Her mouth tasted subtly metallic and her head felt like someone had hit it repeatedly with a wooden hammer.

“Are you okay?” Ghenn was standing over her with an empty potion in their hand. Once her eyes focused Kima could see how awful they looked. Several burn marks and wounds was covering their body, but in the moment their only focus was on Kima.

“What… What happened to the Efreeti?” She coughed as she sat up. Her ribs pulsed with pain. Ghenn didn’t have to answer as she looked around and saw the scene. Allura was sitting some feet away looking down and shaking, her hands were in her hair, frantically braiding and un-braiding it, like she did so often. Drake and Sirius were standing by a pile on the ground picking up various trinkets and bottles and examining them. The ground around them was burned and there was smoke rising up from several spots. Some stands seemed to have been set on fire and they were being put out by a mainly unharmed, but stressed Dohla. She ran around the square with a bucket of water.

“A little §help here guys?” She shot Drake and Sirius annoyed look as she hurried past them.

“Oh, why yes of course.” Drake said with an apologetic laugh and the two arcanists left what Kima now realised was the Efreeti. Or well, the remains of it. Only his cloak, sword and whatever magical items he had hoarded were still there and the massive body was nowhere to be seen.

 

Still the feeling around was not one of regret or fear, but one of exhaustion and relief.

She had been out for the rest of the fight.

“Damn it!” She slammed her fist into the ground. “You guys got to do the most fun stuff.”

It was partly true, she was disappointed, but deep down she was also very happy that they all had survived. She was gaining back better control of her limbs move them around a bit. She tried extending her fingers and closing them into a fist. It hurt and she grimaced. Whatever the Efreeti had hit her with hadn’t been good. She was starting to realise how close she had been to death and shuddered. Ghenn gave her another bottle of healing potion with a small smile before dragging her in to a tight hug.

“We all thought you were done for!” They said as they held her close. Kima hugged them back, patting them on the shoulder.

“I still have things binding me to this plane. You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily.” Kima laughed and looked off towards Allura. “I still have to get a rematch on last night’s game of cards. Plus I have a thousand gold waiting for me back in Emon.”

Ghenn chuckled.

“I’m gonna go help the other’s, you have more potions right?” They asked as they broke the hug and stood up. Kima nodded and took their hand to stand up too. Her legs protested, but she decided to not listen and instead limped as quickly as her legs could take her to Allura’s side.

 

Allura had looked up as soon as she heard Kima’s voice and helped her sit down when she got closer. Her face was charred and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. Her usually neat and braided hair was dishevelled and from some of it there was still rising smoke. She looked exhausted.

“Y-You’re alive!” She said and hastily dried her eyes as Kima sat down.

“Only barely.” Kima laughed.

“I was so worried.” Allura shook her head as she looked at the place where the Efreeti had been. “I think he thought you were dead. That’s why he left you alone after hitting you with that spell. He had some type of magical crystals… It all went so fast. I didn’t have time to get to you, to make sure you were okay, and he would have gotten there before me if I even tried. So I fought him instead. I was so angry and afraid.”

“It’s okay. We’re all alive and he’s not. That’s the important bit.” Kima leaned her head on Allura’s shoulder. She could feel herself breathing easier in Allura’s presence and she hoped that she felt the same. A rambling Allura was a stressed and scared Allura.

“I really wanted the plan to work. I guess I was a bit naïve to believe that a regular rope would work, huh?” Allura snorted and shook her head once more. “It almost got you killed. Most of us killed. When Ghenn and Drake fell unconscious too I thought we were done for. Why did I think that it was a good plan? In the end we had to kill him anyway.”

Kima grabbed Allura’s hand tightly and looked her straight into the eyes.

“Hey, your plan wasn’t the fault of all of this! It was the Rider who made us come here in the first place. All of us knew what this mission could put us through and we were still here. And we did survive in the end, right?”

Allura’s eyes once again filled up with tears and she held Kima in an even tighter hug than Ghenn had.

“Thank you.” She whispered and Kima could feel her own eyes getting a bit wet.

“We should probably go help the others.” Kima said and they both, reluctantly, pulled away from the hug. Allura stood up and pulled her fingers through her hair a couple of times to make it look a bit neater. Kima took longer to get up, her legs complaining even more this time.

“You should take your potions.” Allura reminded her when she finally got up.

“Oh, it’s all right I’ll just-” She stopped when she saw the sceptic look Allura gave her.

“You don’t have to act so strong all the time. We already know you are. And we like you just the way you are.”

Kima looked down and scratched the back of her head. She could feel her cheeks heating up and she tried to hide it as best she could. It was like Allura could read her mind. Kima had no idea how she did it.

“ _I_ like you just the way you are...” Allura said and took Kima’s hand. Kima looked up, confused, and as she did.

Allura suddenly bent down and pressed a kiss on Kima’s lips. It only lasted for a short moment and when Allura pulled away Kima wanted to pull her back in, but she just stood there, dumbfounded.

 “I’ve wanted to do that for a while now.” Allura gave Kima a small smile.

“M- me too.” Was all Kima managed to say.

_Was she still unconscious and dreaming?_

“Hey, lovebirds are you coming or what?” Dohla yelled from one of the stands behind them, breaking the silence that was about to fall between them.

“Oh, right, yes!” Allura said and hurried to help the rest of the gang. Kima stood still for a few seconds before getting back to reality. She reached into her bag and chugged another potion. Although she barely noticed the effects since her body and mind was now over filled with butterflies, concentrating only on what had just transpired. She finally manged to start walking and went to find a bucket for herself to fill with water. Dohla gave her a thumbs up and a smile as Kima passed her.

“Invite me to the wedding.” She whispered and winked. Kima shook her head in disbelief as she hung her bucket on a hook and lowered it down to the well.

 

* * *

 

 

Although there were many stands that had been set on fire it didn’t take long before they had put them out. Several townspeople who had heard the fighting came to help out and with their help it became an easy task. Working on different sides of the square Kima and Allura shot each other many looks and smiled at one another when they made eye contact. When the work was done Kima tried to make her way to Allura’s side but was stopped by an old man. He was short and stooped, putting all of his weight on a wooden staff that looked even older than him.

“Excuse me Kima.”

“Um, yes?”

“I just wanted to say thank you for the good work. Killing an Efreeti isn’t the easiest task the world can throw at you.” His face lit up in an almost toothless grin as he took her hands.

“You’re welcome.” Kima smiled back, a bit confused, but happy for the sentiment nonetheless. She wasn’t sure how he knew her name.

“You have difficult times ahead of you young woman. Remember too keep your friends and family close.” He continued and then fell silent for a while, seemingly trying to remember something. After a moment had passed he seemed to remember it and nodded solemnly.

“Take care Kima.” He said and patted her hand before letting them go. He gave Kima another warm smile and started to whistle as he walked away. She could swear that she could hear birds chiming in with his wistful tune. Canaries maybe? Kima wasn’t sure.

“What a weird man.” She muttered and continued making her way to Allura. Still his words rang in her ears and there was something about them that she could not shake.

 

“Ready to go back to the inn and finally get some good night’s sleep?” Allura asked as Kima approached.

“Definitely!” Kima sighed and stretched her sore arms. She was almost completely healed from the potions, but her body was exhausted. Allura waved to the others to come join them.

“Hey, did you speak to that old man before me?” Kima asked her as Dohla and Drake walked up to them.

“What man?” Allura asked. Kima looked around to point him out to her but he was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ve only seen rather young people here. Guessing elders will pass on the opportunity to help out.” Allura answered. Kima nodded, that made sense, but why had that old man been there then?

“I can’t wait to have a bath!” Sirius exclaimed as he came over to the group interrupting Kima’s thoughts.

“Yeah me too!” Ghenn said and they all agreed. As they passed the edge of the town square the sun rose above the treetops.

“We’ll head back some time tomorrow. We all need to rest before leaving.” Drake said. “There’s no use trying to head back today.”

“Just because you always want to sleep more than twelve hours!” Dohla laughed and so did the others. “But you’re right. We’re all gonna sleep for a looong time. I’m not sure if I’ll ever wake up. I’m almost sleepwalking as we speak.”

 

After walking in silence for a moment Kima took the opportunity to ask what she had been wondering since she woke up.

“What happened to the body by the way? Did you get anything from his cloak?”

“When he died, he exploded. I don’t think that was something anyone of us could have seen coming. Almost took the closest of us with him.” Drake answered and shook his head in disbelief. “We did get some potions and a lot of magical items. Me and Allura are going to see what they are later.”

“Do you have the cloak still? I’ll need it, and some rings when I get back to Emon. Günter wanted proof of the Rider’s death.”

“Of course.” Drake answered.

 

* * *

 

 

As they made their way up the stairs, avoiding the curious stares from people still sitting at the bar, Kima finally felt the relief wash over her. They had all survived. She smiled tiredly and said good night to her friends as they made their way into their separate rooms.

“Wait! Kima?” She heard Allura’s voice behind her and turned around. “Could… Could you maybe sleep in my room tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”

“Of course Allie.” Kima said as she pressed a kiss on Allura’s cheek. She had to stand on her toes and pull Allura towards her, but Allura leaned in and smiled. It felt new and nerve-racking even though it was something she had wanted to do every night for the past few weeks.

 

Kima gathered her things from her room and went into Allura’s. It looked just like hers but mirrored. A bed standing in the far left corner with a nightstand beside it, a small window on the wall and a few hooks in the wall to hang clothes on. Allura’s traveling cloak was the only personal thing in the room at the moment. Something she had just thrown in there before hurrying down to dinner the past evening. Kima lit the oil lamp standing on the nightstand and began taking off her armour.

“I could just lay down and sleep in this.” She sighed as she bent down to take of her leg plates.

“Do you want help?” Allura asked and Kima hesitated. Partly because of the part of her brain that told her to always do things herself and partly because Allura was currently changing into a nightgown. She had never seen Allura undress in this much light before and she was thankful it was now rather than before. She couldn’t keep her eyes off her.

Allura looked up.

“Do you?”

“I…What?” Kima shook her head trying to get back to reality.

“Do you want help getting your armour off?” Allura gave her another warm smile and Kima swore that she melted right there on the spot. What was happening to her? She was usually so quick to wit and conversation.

“Um… sure.” She answered and Allura sat down beside her and helped her with her breastplate. Once they were finished Kima turned around to her… friend? Partner? Companion? She wasn’t sure yet, maybe she’d ask Allura in the morning.

“You’re so beautiful.” Kima said and reached her hand up to Allura’s hair. It was still frizzy and full of dust but she couldn’t care less. They would all need to take baths in the morning and she definitely looked forward to that. Though right now all she wanted to do was sleep, with Allura by her side.

“So are you.”

They both laid down on the bed and Kima kissed Allura before turning around. Allura put her arm around Kima and held her close and Kima wasn’t sure if she had ever been this comfortable in her entire life. Still it all still felt strange, like she shouldn’t be there. To think that Allura actually saw in Kima what Kima saw in her? Kima wasn’t sure she’d ever understand it. Still, she felt happier and more relaxed than she had in a long time. Even with all the butterflies.

“Good night Kima.” Allura mumbled, already falling asleep.

“Good night Allie.” Kima answered as she closed her eyes.

 

It didn’t take long before both of them, and the rest of their group, had fallen into a deep sleep keeping them in bed until the late afternoon arrived.

 

* * *

 

 

The following day, which was barely an entire day since none of them made it out of bed before three, was spent identifying the various objects they had gathered from the fallen Efreeti. There were several nasty potions in there, some poisonous some just cruel. One, which was labelled “Potion of Giant Strength”, was actually one causing it’s consumer to fall upwards until the effects wore off or something came in your way. Kima could imagine the amount of damage you would take falling from such an extreme height. The jewellery that hadn’t been his seemed to be various cursed items and all of them were careful not to touch them with their bare hands. Out of the four rings the Efreeti had had Allura, Dohla, Ghenn and Sirius each took one and Allura put the rest of the things in their bag of holding to show to Uriel the next day.

 

Apart from this Kima and Allura took time for themselves to wander around the town hand in hand. They went back to the town square where the market was up and running again despite some of the stalls still showing signs of last night’s battle. The stage had been removed and most of the festival decorations had been removed, it was once again an ordinary day.

“’Til next year!” They heard the man in charge of the arm-wrestling say to someone else with a wave, who smiled and said the same. In the afternoon light they could see a few buds which were starting to open slightly, something they had not noticed the day before. Kima walked up to the patch of grass that grew around the tree and picked a violet from it.

“We’ll still meet when we get back to Emon right?” She asked as she put the flower in Allura’s hair.

“Of course!” Allura answered. “I’ll come visit you in the temple as often as I can and I’ll show you my place too. I live in the Central District so it’s not too far.”

Kima pulled Allura into a tight hug. She hadn’t planned on staying in Emon that long, but with Allura and all of her new friends living there she knew she had to extend her visit. Maybe she’d actually learn to find her way around the giant city.

 

* * *

 

 

The next few days were filled with travel and relieved rest. They were going to rent a horse cart to get back to the town with the teleportation circle, but the villagers gifted it to them as a thank you for helping their town. The travel was silent and calm the first day, everyone still recovering from the battle. But it soon turned in to laughter and slight annoyance as the boredom of the travel took hold and they all resorted to playing cards. Kima still did as badly but managed to keep her cool. Maybe she finally felt at peace with the group or maybe it was Allura’s hand playing with Kima’s hair as she read one of her many books. Maybe both.

 

The nervousness had faded somewhat in the past days and Kima was getting used to being able to hold Allura’s hand and kiss her and sleep in the same bed and everything it means to be together with someone. Waking up in the mornings were one of the happiest moments of her day.

 

The gang had all been super excited about their announcement (“We’re girlfriends! We think. We like each other. It’s cool. We hope it work out”) and Ghenn had almost asked to be the person of honour before realising that they might be jumping the gun a little too soon. Drake had given them a “Congratulations.” with small smile and that was about the best you could hope for with him, which made them both very happy.

 

When they got back to Emon Uriel greeted them warmly. He seemed as relieved as the group to know that the job was done and rewarded all of them 500 gold each. He promised that he would spread the word about their deed and to let them know if the city needed any more of their help. They all thanked him and went on their way.

 

Back in the Wyvernhound Günter was cleaning glasses, as usual, it seemed and when he saw them walk in the door his face lit up.

“I reckon ye got the job done?”

“We did.” Kima said and presented him with the cloak and the jewlery. “I’m sorry that I could get a body but he exploded. That’s an Efreeet thing, apperantly.”

Günter nodded.

“That’s all right. I trust ye.” He said with another smile as he reached under the bar and took out a sack of coin. “A thousand gold, as promised and the first round’s on me.”

Kima thanked him and as she turned around she shook her head.

_Way too trusting that one._

They all sat down in a booth together. One last meal before going their separate ways.

“So what are yall going to do now then?” Kima asked as their drinks were brought to the table.

“I’ll study some more arcane things, I think. They do have great books in that library we went to.” Drake answered.

“I wanna fight. Maybe I can join the crownsguard or something. Or become a smith. Something that uses muscel at least. If we find some more adventure I’d love to go with you all though!” Ghenn said enthusiastically. “We’ll keep in touch, right?”

“Of course. Now that we’ve almost died together we’re bonded for life.” Dohla said.

“Cheers to that.” Kima raised her glass and they all followed suit.

 

The evening went on as they all discussed future plans. Sirius preformed a song he’d written on the way back about what they had been through. It was a beautiful and enticing song that got many applause from the surrounding patrons. Kima put her head on Allura’s shoulder as she listened and Allura wrapped her arm around her and kissed her head. Everything was all warm and happy.

 

Then suddenly a man in crowns guard uniform burst through the door, looking worriedly around the room. A cold wind blew in from behind him. He soon saw the booth were they were sitting and quickly made his way towards them.

 

“I’m so sorry to call you back this quickly but Uriel needs your help. He says to hurry to the palace.”

“What’s this fuss about?” Dohla gave the guard a suspicious look.  
“Well, he wasn’t very clear. He just said something about a large read creature. It seems to have destroyed several smaller towns and people fear it’s coming here next. I think… I think it was something about a… a…”

“A what?” Kima urged impatiently. The guard swallowed and wiped his brow. He seemed to fear what he was about to say. Like it wasn’t reality yet but uttering the words would somehow make it all true. Allura’s hand squeezed Kima’s hard under the table. The guard looked down on the ground and then back up to the group.

“ _A dragon._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup people. Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.  
> So, uh, this took a while and I'm sorry. I actually had most of the chapter done pretty soon after I posted the last one but then I didn't have any inspiration, and lots of things have happened passed this year, which meant that I basically forgot about it.  
> I hope you can forgive me for taking so long.  
> I remembered this fanfic not too long ago and I thought it'd be fun to finally finish it and post the last chapter exactly a year after the last one, so I did. 
> 
> Also fun to read through it all a year later. So much I've learned about dnd and Matt's world since I first started watching. Who would have know that it's called teleportation _circles_ not circuits hahah. I'll go back and edit some stuff in the comming idk weeks?
> 
>  
> 
> I've also DMed a game. Super fun!
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways I will miss these sapphics. They were my faves, but they live on in out hearts. Let's hope the new campaign brings more of it (I mean it seems promising so far).


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